Western Storm General Manager returns from Australia
It wasn’t just the England squad that spent the winter in Australia.
Western Storm General Manager, Lisa Pagett was also Down-Under getting a first-hand glimpse of this years Big Bash as she explained when we spoke to her earlier this week.
“I spent nearly a month with the Adelaide Strikers,” she said. “The trip was essentially about working with them and seeing how they go about their business. It was really interesting to see how they do things. Quite rightly the Strikers have a really good reputation for being successful in a very high-profile competition and it was great to be able to spend some time with both the men’s and the women’s programmes.”
How will what she witnessed in Australia benefit Western Storm in the Kia Super League?
“Now that I’m back home it’s really just a question of dissecting what I learnt and recognising what can and can’t be done,” she said. “Obviously, there are some differences in scale between the competitions when it comes to budget and resource, but there are definitely some things that we can try and bring to Western Storm.
“One of the biggest things over there is how they engage with the fans and how families and young children are really encouraged to go to games. There are some really good ideas that I think we can implement over here to help get people to come along and support Western Storm and see the high quality of cricket that will be on show.”
This year’s KIA Super League will see twice as many fixtures, with each team playing the other teams in the tournament twice whilst there will also be increased television coverage. Sky Sports will be showing 12 live fixtures from this year’s competition, starting with Western Storm’s opening match against Yorkshire Diamonds at the Cooper Associates County Ground on July 22nd.
Lisa believes that this will be a tremendous boost for the women’s game. “The ICC Women’s World Cup last year has created some tremendous momentum for the game and women’s sport is now being viewed in a very different light, with a new audience that is growing all the time. There were some really encouraging viewing figures from last years Kia Super League Final, so we know people are watching and are interested in the competition. We have to build on that now and make sure that the momentum continues.”
