WOMEN and girls had fun at an annual cricket festival in Barrow helping to enhance the opportunities they have in sport.

A total of 25 women and girls, from the ages of five to 60 joined organisers and volunteers at Barrow Cricket Club, Ernest Park, for a fun day filled with lots of cricket, prosecco and BBQ food.

Laura Croskery, 31, team member at Barrow Cricket Club, who also helped organise the festival said it was such a good day for the women and girls to get stuck into cricket again.

She said: “We started in 2018 doing an annual festival, getting a mix of local friends to group together or Barrow cricket club members, people with no experience of cricket at all, right up to people who are quite sporty and just having an annual festival where we have a BBQ, free class of prosecco for the ladies in a very fun environment play some small games of cricket.”

Laura said the idea came from an initiative back in 2018 where Cumbria cricket pushed for more clubs in the area to get women and girls playing cricket so herself and other members set it up and the rest was history.

She said: “Like a lot of other clubs in the county really we are trying to enhance the women and girls’ opportunities in cricket, making it more accessible for those who want to get involved in sport without it necessarily taking up everyone’s weekend, doing smaller, local fixtures and a bit of training just to allow more opportunities really.

“From starting our festivals back in 2018 we noticed that there is a real market, there is some interest in cricket. This year for the first time we started doing a weekly training session in April – a mix of people turning up for a couple of hours on Thursday night.

“It’s nice to see more women and girls wanting to get involved and joining in.” If you are interested in joining next year visit: https://www.facebook.com/BarrowCC for regular updates.