Clearing Boundaries/Captains File Book

From the backyards of Lismore, Glenelg, Shepparton... to the big time at Lords, the Gabba, Mumbai, Sabina Park. Travel back in time to the pioneering captains… Margaret Peden, Mollie Dive, Una Paisley; through the ages to Muriel Picton, Miriam Knee, Anne Gordon, to modern day greats, Alex Blackwell and Meg Lanning. There's household names Belinda Clark, Karen Rolton, Lyn Larsen, Jodie Fields. Rob Harvey’s Captains File: From Peden to Haynes, Australia's Women Test Cricket Captains takes you on a journey to the first battle for the Ashes at home and the voyages across the seas to England to take them back; tours to India, the Caribbean, New Zealand, from the visionary Margaret Peden to the new age under Meg Lanning and Rachael Haynes. “Australia’s women’s Test cricketers have an enthralling past, their history beautifully brought to life by Rob Harvey. Rob has produced a unique, unprecedented piece of work which draws you in and brings so much to you as the reader.” – Lyn Larsen For the first time, every one of Australia's women Test captains all together in a fascinating account of women's Test cricket in Australia. Clearing Boundaries, The Rise of Australian Women’s Cricket, produced by Churchill Press in partnership with the Bradman Museum, is the first ever coffee-table style book devoted to the women’s game and the most comprehensive history produced about it for almost 30 years. Written by Fiona Bollen with Matt Bonser, it fills in the gaps for many who are following the women’s game today. From the early trailblazers of the 19th Century to 21st Century household names like Meg Lanning, Alyssa Healy, Beth Mooney and Ellyse Perry, Clearing Boundaries tracks the rise of women’s cricket in Australia to its current status, where the Australian team is dominating on the world stage. Clearing Boundaries began as a project to preserve images of women in the game that were part of a collection of previously lost historical press photos acquired by the Bradman Museum with the help of former Cricket Australia Chairman Wally Edwards. However, the project was quickly expanded following a passionate plea from Bradman Museum Executive Director Rina Hore to cover five key eras of the women’s game, from the first recorded match at Sandhurst (now Bendigo) in 1874, the first-ever Test series, to the exhilarating, record-breaking ICC T20 Women’s World Cup in February-March 2020. Clearing Boundaries presents inspirational images and memorable moments from more than a century of the game. Told mostly through the lens of the national team, it’s a celebration of those who have reached the pinnacle of their sport in eras of both prosperity and obscurity. Highlights include the first Ashes series, when our first female national side led by Margaret Peden welcomed Betty Archdale’s England touring side in Australia in 1934/35 - firstly in Perth and then the eastern states. Storylines have been dedicated to the legendary Betty Wilson who, in the 1957/58 Ashes became was the first cricketer – female or male – to score a century and take 10 wickets in the one Test match. It tells how the women’s game has led from the front and helped bring about some revolutionary changes; from the first Indigenous cricketer to play for Australia, the first Test match to be televised in Australia, the first World Cup in 1973, and to the first women’s game at Lord’s. The merger between Women’s Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricket Board (now Cricket Australia) is detailed, along with the rise of T20, the introduction of the now hugely popular Women’s Big Bash League, greater media exposure, the ground-breaking new structure for the Ashes across all three forms of the game, and the biggest pay rise in the history of women’s sport in Australia. Dream batting debuts, dynamic bowling efforts, tumbling records, spectacular catches…all are covered in the eye-catching imagery of Clearing Boundaries. The book also includes statistical records of every woman to represent Australia on the cricket field.