Cricket: The code switch that changed the course of Georgia Plimmer's life

When Georgia Plimmer made the switch from softball to cricket as a 14-year-old, she had no idea it would lead to a career, great money, travel, and a shot at the Olympics.

The 21-year-old is one of the benefactors of an increased investment in the female side of the game and more girls are giving it a shot because of the opportunities it offers.

A number of White Ferns have backgrounds in other sports, including veteran Sophie Devine, who used to play for the Black Sticks women's hockey team.

Not long after Devine missed out on selection for the Black Sticks for the 2012 London Olympics, she was offered one of the first professional women's contracts with cricket and hasn't looked back.

Like Devine, fellow White Ferns stalwart Suzie Bates juggled two sports for a while, even competing at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing for the New Zealand women's basketball team.

The pair now have a chance to compete in cricket at the Olympics, something they would not have thought possible early on in their careers.

Current White Ferns Izzy Gaze and Eden Carson were very handy hockey players. Last year at 28, Otago Sparks player Polly Inglis was awarded her first New Zealand contract, having once been selected for the Black Sticks development squad.

Plimmer was one of the stars of the White Ferns T20 World Cup success last year, but cricket was not her first love.

"I started playing softball as early as I could join a club, which would have been when I was five or six playing T-ball ...I had no thought of playing cricket," Plimmer said.

It wasn't until she was 13 that she first tried cricket and only really did so because a friend wanted to play at college. Plimmer had no idea how to actually play the game.

"Not a clue. I had watched a little bit of the Boxing Day test matches when it was on around Christmas, but I had no idea about any of the rules so I was pretty much just out there to field and when the ball came down just try and whack it and that's pretty much all I knew about it."

Once she added club cricket to the mix the following summer, she stopped playing softball. Learning how to play cricket was a huge learning curve.

"When I started all I was doing was just swinging across the line and setting up like a softballer when I was batting. And I guess when I started playing club cricket learning how to bowl was a lot different to anything I had done in softball. There were a lot of things I had to learn, there are a lot of little intricacies in cricket to get used to."

Eight years on, the White Ferns top-order batter now considers herself a bit of a cricket nerd and watches a 'tonne of cricket'.

Plimmer, who has been sidelined for a few weeks with injury, said her fielding skills made the crossover easier.

"When I first got into the Wellington Blaze and probably the White Ferns, a lot of what they saw in me was my fielding. All those softball trainings I went to since there was so much focus on throwing and technique and how to release the ball quickly and get into good positions with your footwork. Learning how to handle a ball and catch from such a young age really transitioned into playing cricket."

Plimmer played a bunch of sports as a kid but said the mental side of cricket really drew her in.

"I was really intrigued about the strategy and how you could think about the game and the different parts of being able to get better at that and I think that sort of made me really want to go to trainings all the time whereas some of the other sports I just really wanted to play but no train so much."

Got a good arm on you?

Tawa College has produced several White Ferns in recent years including Sophie Devine, Amelia and Jess Kerr, and Plimmer.

The Girls First XI took out the 2024 national title for the third time last year. That team included two junior White Sox softball players, and a New Zealand netball secondary schools trialist.

Deputy principal Steve Conroy has taught at the school for 28 years and has seen girls cricket grow in momentum.

"We have motivated people in the school shoulder-tapping kids so softballers, hockey players, netballers etc. You start to shoulder tap people you know are athletic, and out of that comes these kids who then start to think about cricket a bit more."

Conroy said young women were seeing cricket as more of a genuine career option.

"One of our top softballers only started playing cricket at the end of last year and she's got this vision of maybe actually going on in cricket, she enjoys it and it's a game that she could actually make a living from later."

Conroy said girls were more aware of what cricket offered, with a lot of women's cricket now on TV.

"It seems to me that they have to equality so if men's cricket is being shown, then the women's cricket is being shown. Then it's in the shop window and people like Melie Kerr are becoming quite well known and you hear how much money the top players can get ...all that raises the profile of cricket as a female sport."

Conroy said the cost of playing some other codes was another factor.

"The two players in our First XI, who also played for the junior White Sox, they paid something like $8000 to go to Brisbane for a softball tournament. Then you have cricketers go overseas with the New Zealand Under 19s and not having to pay a cent so there's that kind of disparity.

"And they get to go to some pretty cool places around the world, to these warm destinations, it's the full package if you can make it to the top."

Former White Fern Sarah Tsukigawa is the women's national selector, which includes the NZA and Under 19 team, which didn't even exist until three years ago.

The NZ under-19 team played its first matches in 2022, in preparation for the inaugural Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup in 2023.

Tsukigawa wants to make pathways more seamless so they can target players and put resources in the right places.

Tsukigawa played 61 games for New Zealand between 2006 and 2011 and said women are playing so much more cricket now.

"If you look at the White Ferns, when I played you would probably have a home tour and maybe one away tour a year. Last year there were series against England, Australia, a World Cup, India, and Australia again," Tsukigawa said.

"Then they come back to New Zealand for the Super Smash and HBJ (Hallyburton Johnstone Shield), then there are those that play in overseas leagues as well like the IPL in India and Big Bash in Australia so there's just so many more opportunities."

She said the White Ferns victory at last year's World Cup had boosted its profile and New Zealand Cricket has seen a significant increase in youth female registrations compared to this time last year.

Tsukigawa is also responsible for the identification of talent across the women's pathway.

"In every sport you are wanting to attract the best athletes and within Otago Cricket for example, they have links with hockey and I think the more that sports can promote themselves and message what is available, the better.

"I played rep football and a bit of squash when I was younger and you definitely get attracted to sports that have those really good pathways when you leave school and that can be crucial."

Tsukigawa said hand-eye coordination was fundamental to being a good cricketer and that could be found in the likes of softball and hockey players.

"If you can use your back hip to come through to get that power to hit a softball, then you most definitely can do it in cricket, it's just a little bit different and there's perhaps more shots to learn.

"If you see a softballer who can hit at an absolute mile and has a strong throw, chances are they are going to be good at cricket and those skills transfer nicely but I think top sports people will say that the more sports you play as a young person the better."

Overseas league like the IPL and Big Bash also offer something very unique - the chance to play on the same team alongside the best players in the world.

Remuneration and the Olympic drawcard

In 2022 a new collective agreement made the White Ferns the best paid female sports team in New Zealand, thanks to a 100 percent increase on their previous deal.

Contracted White Ferns earn between $142,000 and $163,000, which includes both a retainer and match fees. The highest-ranked White Fern, who also plays a full domestic season, can earn around $180,000.

New Zealand internationals are also able to play in leagues overseas. Last year Amelia Kerr earned about half a million dollars from all her cricket, and that was before she was named the best women's cricketer in the world.

For winning the T20 World Cup last year, each White Fern got NZ$256,000 in prize money.

While they are still earning far less than New Zealand's top male cricketers, the gains that female cricketers have made have been remarkable.

There is likely to be a push to increase the payments for domestic level players when the collective agreement comes up for negotiation again. With players receiving around $19,000 for a domestic season, it is still very much a part-time gig.

"You have players in the Super Smash and HBJ working full-time jobs, playing against White Ferns, who are full-time athletes," Tsukigawa said.

In Netball's ANZ Premiership the retainers range between $26,000 and $56,000.

T20 cricket is one of five new sports set to feature at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.

Although cricket is played in a relatively small number of countries it brings massive broadcast appeal fuelled largely by the Indian market, which would have been a big tick for the International Olympic Committee.

Tsukigawa said the Olympics was a big carrot.

"It's kind of the pinnacle of sport isn't it. If you look at the world tournaments that the White Ferns get to go to, they had the T20 World Cup last year, they've got the ODI world cup later this year.

"And it's the tournaments that you really remember and strive for and I think being involved in the Olympics just shows how big women's cricket is around the world, in places like Australia, India, and England and how much it's grown over the last 20 years."

A sport like basketball is widely played across the world, making it tougher to qualify. The Tall Ferns have not qualified for the Olympics since 2008.

The Black Sticks women failed to qualify for the 2024 Games in Paris, missing the Olympics for the first time in 28 years.

Softball has been in and out of the Olympic programme and the White Sox have only represented New Zealand once at an Olympics in 2000. Softball will return to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics but qualifying will be tough.

Netball, which is by far the most popular female sport in New Zealand, wants to become an Olympic sport but faces a massive uphill battle.

Does Plimmer thank her 13-year-old self for trying cricket?

"At the time I obviously didn't know how much was going to be invested into women's cricket but it's pretty incredible to see how much it has improved. It's really exciting for young girls to see it's possible to make a career out of it. There is a lot more interest and investment in women's sport now and hopefully that continues, not just in cricket.

"I really appreciate all the softball coaches that I had and how much impact they had on me and how I was able to use those skills, so in many ways they are probably the most influential coaches that I've had."