Lancashire Cricket: Rebecca Duckworth delighted by the development of women's cricket

The middle-order batter, from Preston, has been with the Red Rose since she was 11-years-old.

Duckworth says the sport is unique in the fact that you’re part of a team, but can still express yourself as an individual.

She said: “I’ve got an older brother so I started going down to the cricket club with him and just started playing, messing around, but I ended up going for trials with Lancashire and it just carried on.

“It’s quite like a family sport, I’ve grown up watching my uncle and brother play. They’re long days so everyone is always involved at the club.

“It’s quite unique, because when you’re on the pitch it’s quite an individual sport where you’ve got the opportunity to show what you can do, but you’re still in a team so you can still make friends.

“When I first started there were no professional women cricketers, but now we’re at the stage for us all to be fully contracted in a few years time. It starts out as a hobby but it has the potential to be a career.

“In the last few World Cups I’ve watched it’s been England, Australia and India, but I think this year a lot of teams were competing, and beating each other. I think that shows how much the women’s game is coming on internationally and not just in our country.

“I still think we don’t play enough four-day cricket, I’ve only played one day growing up. Your skills are probably learnt in a longer format like the men, because it challenges you physically and mentally. We don’t see enough of that.”

Duckworth hopes the team can be more confident this season, as Thunder prepare to start their season against Southern Vipers in the Charlotte Edwards Cup on Saturday.

“We want to win a lot more games as a team this year,” she added.

“We’ve all worked so hard over winter, so it would be nice to get more wins than we usually do, and just compete.

“We’ve got a good bunch of girls who are very talented, so we’ve got to believe in ourselves a bit more because in the last few years we have struggled.”