Brisbane Women’s Cricket was formed a joint venture between MSW and BNJCA to facilitate the development of community cricket for women and girls in the Brisbane region. The structure is supported by Queensland Cricket as complementary pathway for players in parallel to pre-existing premier cricket competitions, and to provide flow-on competition from the rapidly growing girls junior cricket competitions in the Brisbane-area junior cricket zones.
BWC operates three community cricket competitions:
- Harris Shield
- Kirsten Pike Plate; and
- Rebecca McCoombes Cup.
For its first season of operation, in 2021-22 BWC ran two very successful T20 competitions in the Harris Shield and Kirsten Pike Plate. For its second season, BWC is adding a new one-day women’s competition, the Rebecca McCoombes Cup, to the line-up.
For season 2024-25, Wests will enter teams in the Harris Shield and Kirsten Pike Plate competitions, and has partnered with Holland Park Junior CC and Wolston Park CC to enter teams in the Rebecca McCoombes Cup.
Harris Shield
The Harris Shield competition is for U15 players who are making the transition from junior girls cricket to senior cricket. Many Harris Shield players aspire to play in the Paul Pink Shield U15 premier competition, and in women’s grade cricket. The competition provides an ideal opportunity to build players skills for those competitions against strong U15 opposition.
With the advent of the new Rebecca McCoombes Cup one day womens comp, the Harris Shield provides a great opportunity for aspiring players to play a second game of cricket each weekend and build their T20 skills.
Harris Shield games are played in the evening under lights, mainly on Friday nights and some Saturday nights.
The Harris Shield is named in honour of the Harris sisters – Laura and Grace Harris, both of whom have made significant contributions to women’s cricket in the Brisbane region. Both are stalwarts of the Queensland Fire and Brisbane Heat women’s teams, and Grace is also a current Australian representative player.
Wests will be looking to build in its previous success in the Harris Shield competition (when Wests won the competition in 2020-21 when it was run as an MSW-zone competition), and go a couple of places better than our third and fourth placings in the 2021-22 edition!
Kirsten Pike Plate
The Kirsten Pike Plate is an open-age womens community cricket competition older teenagers and women players who prefer to play short-form cricket in the evenings (as opposed to longer format one-day cricket in the daytime), and for older players wanting to develop their skills for the women’s second grade premier cricket and the Rebecca McCoombes Cup one-day community women’s cricket competition.
With the Rebecca McCoombes Cup one-day womens comp, the KPP provides a great opportunity for women’s community players and women’s second grade players to play a second game of cricket each weekend and build their T20 skills.
Kirsten Pike Plate games are played under lights at night, mainly on Friday and some Saturday nights.
The Kirsten Pike Plate is named in honour of former Queensland Fire and Australian womens cricketer Kirsten Pike. In addition to playing 86 games for Queensland in the WNCL, Kirsten represented Australia in 37 games across the three major formats of the game.
Rebecca McCoombes Cup
The newly-minted RMC women’s community cricket competition had its first outing during the 2022-23 season. Teams have been formed from ground-breaking partnerships between community and premier cricket clubs, and we’re gearing up for a big season.
Rebecca McCoombes Cup matches are one-day 35-over format, and will be played on Sunday afternoons. Players will be drawn from a combination of community clubs and players who are not selected to play women’s grade cricket in any given week.
The Rebecca McCoombes Cup is named in honour of Brisbane women’s grade cricketer Rebecca McCoombes. Bec has played over 250 games of women’s cricket in the Brisbane premier grade comp over a period spanning more than 15 years, and is a fine example of a player who plays every game in the community spirit of cricket.
Wests has established alliance partnerships with two community cricket clubs – Holland Park Junior Cricket Club and Wolston Park Cricket Club to enter joint teams in the RMC for the 2024-25 season. Wish us luck!!
For more details about how to
- Harris Shield – Wests girls cricket co-ordinator, TBA
- Kirsten Pike Plate and Rebecca McCoombes Cup – Wests women’s cricket manager admin@westsdcc.cricket.
