VANUATU’S women’s national cricket team captain Selina Solman is compiling cricket milestones as fast as she is taking wickets.
The 23-year-old has just returned to Port Vila from London after playing in a special T20 cricket match there.
The match was sponsored by Fairbreak Global which is a global initiative designed to create pathways for women to have better access to opportunities, education and high level performance roles.
Selina played for the FairBreak Global XI in an exhibition T20 match on May 30 in London to celebrate the inaugural Day of Gender Equality.
“It was a great honour and I was just so excited to be playing alongside the best female players in the world – it was the highlight of my career so far,” she told The Independent Online news this week.
Her team included two of her cricket idols – former Australian vice-captain and all-rounder Alex Blackwell who retired from international cricket earlier this year after an amazing 251 appearances for Australia, and New Zealand veteran Suzie Bates.
“When I batted I was at the wicket with Alex and I just kept saying to myself ‘I’m batting with Alex’, I couldn’t believe it, but all the girls were really nice to me, it was an amazing experience,’’ she said.
Not only did Selina play with the cream of women’s cricket, but she was named player of the match.
“I don’t know how that happened because I only took one wicket and made a few runs,’’ she said modestly.
She said the match was held at Wormsley Park in Buckinghamshire at the estate of the late billionaire philanthropist John Paul Getty, and the field is regarded as one of the most beautiful cricket grounds in the world.
“The ground was the most beautiful I have ever seen and to play on it was incredible. The grass was just so perfect and smooth and I didn’t want the game to end,’’ she said.
The T20 match was played between Sir Paul Getty Women’s XI and FairBreak Global XI, which comprised international players from 11 countries.
Selina’s said it is also important for her to be representing Vanuatu on a day dedicated to gender equality.
The team was coached by former West Indies player Vasbert Drakes, former Australian fast bowler Geoff Lawson and Damien Wright, with the FairBreak Global XI managed by Saba Nasim, who was awarded a BEM for her coaching of women in England.
The John Paul Getty Foundation has never fielded a women’s team before but their men’s team has in the past included star players like Brian Lara and Shane Warne.
Selina said although her team lost it was a great opportunity to learn from the players around her.
The FairBreak Global XI comprised: Akanksha Kohli (India), Alex Blackwell (Australia), Diane Bimenyimana (Rwanda), Diviya GK (Singapore), Divya Saxena (Canada), Lakshmi Yadav (India), Mariko Hill (Hong Kong), Nadia Gruny (USA), Vaishali Jesrani (Oman), Selina Solman (Vanuatu), Shamilia Connell (West Indies) and Suzie Bates (New Zealand).
She said there was a good crowd in attendance and quite a deal of media attention.
“I did a few interviews, which was a pretty new thing for me,’’ she said.
Selina said she loved everything about the trip to London, including the long flight.
But there was some drama when she arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport.
“I was in these long queues to get through immigration and customs that took forever and the driver who had come to collect me thought I must have missed the flight and he left,” she said.
“I had to get a taxi from the airport to the hotel and then I had been given the wrong name of the hotel, but I got there in the end and the black cab ride cost 80 pounds.”
She also played in a practice/friendly game against Kent, an English women’s county side, which was another great experience.
At the beginning of the year Selina spent three months in Adelaide in South Australia on player placement with the Southern District Stingrays under the sponsorship of FairBreak Global.
FairBreak Global aims to create opportunities for women in sports, business, media and education to achieve gender equality and they, along with Vanuatu Cricket and the Southern District Stingrays, are supporting Selina in boosting her cricketing career.
She was the first national women’s cricketer from Vanuatu to go on an international player placement and play premier first grade cricket in Australia and she was coached by former Vanuatu Cricket volunteer, Llewelyn Hoy, and Vanuatu national men’s captain, Andrew Mansale.
Selina said the three months playing first grade in Adelaide was a great learning experience and she took 10 wickets with her right arm medium pace bowling as a first change bowler.
“It was a great time to play with women at that level on grass pitches and my bowling improved, but I’m still working on my batting,” she said.
She said she hoped to be playing in Australia again next summer.
“We are working on that at the moment,’’ she said.
Selina_2Selina began playing cricket in 2013 after being talked into playing in a mixed game with both men and women.
“I wanted to bowl and I wasn’t keen on batting because I was scared of the ball,’’ she said, laughing.
In 2014, she debuted in the national team playing in Papua New Guinea and the following year she was vice captain in Japan when the captain was injured and she took over the top job, and she now enjoys the challenge of it.
Selina, who has also represented Vanuatu in netball, would love to be a cricket professional playing a women’s Big Bash league.
“I just want to play cricket for as long as I can and go as far as I can in the game,’’ she said.
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