Junior Girls
Christchurch is proud to enjoy a very strong Junior Girls competition. We have more than 200 players in girls only junior teams, across 3 grades, playing cricket on a Saturday morning. The CJCA are committed to continue this success and continue to grow the number of girls playing junior cricket in Christchurch.
Girls Grades
Girls can play in mixed, or girls only teams. Generally, younger girls (Yr 1 – 4) play in mixed teams and as they get older they move into a girl’s teams that play in one of the three girls grades that CJCA offers. There are three girls only grades which cater for ages Yr 4 – 8 (primary/intermediate school age group).
Girls Super 8 targets years 4 – 5 and plays with a soft ball
Girls Yrs 5/6 targets years 5 – 6 and plays with a leather ball
Girls Yrs 7/8 targets years 7 – 8 and plays with a leather ball
The broad range of ages for each grade takes into account the experience and range of ages typical of a club’s girls only team. There are subtle differences between the grades. The Girls Yrs 5/6 grade plays with a softer ball using pads and helmets. Our Girls Yrs 7/8 grade provides a competitive hardball grade for experienced and/or talented primary and intermediate players.
Pathway through youth and women’s cricket
Beyond our junior grades our girl’s progress to the girl’s Youth grades, which can be found under the Adult Metro competition which is administered by Canterbury Cricket. A female programme flowchart outlines the progression for females in Canterbury. This underage rep teams document from Canterbury Cricket provides a relatively detailed overview of the team and player pathways within the representative programme for the forthcoming season together with confirmation of the rep teams that are being selected this season.
Regional Tournaments
The CJCA runs a “Spring Tournament” in November/December and a “Summer Tournament” in February/March each season. Parents or coaches can nominate the girls here.
We strongly encourage all girls to play in this tournament even if this is your first year of cricket. It is great fun, the girls get to meet and play with other girls from different teams and the games are generally very close because we select four even year 5/6 teams and 4 even year 7/8 teams. They are played on two, or three consecutive Sundays.
If you have friends who are good cricketers but play another sport on a Saturday and would like to play in the tournament then encourage them to nominate themselves.
The main emphasis is on raising the level of cricket- but representative teams are also selected from this tournament.
Representative Opportunities
We strongly suggest that you play in the regional tournaments in order to be selected as a CJCA representative.
Representative teams are selected from the Spring Tournament to play in the South Island Primary Schools Tournament that takes place in January each year in Christchurch.
Question? Please free to contact our Grade manager on girls@cjca.org.nz