Only 15 years old, Caoimhe Bray announced her arrival in franchise league cricket on her WBBL debut, bowling a yorker to clean bowl Deandra Dottin.
Bray has already represented Australia at football as a goalkeeper at the AFC Under-17 Women’s Asia Cup in Indonesia. Also a promising fast bowler, she had come to limelight by clean bowling Laura Harris with her second ball in a T20 Spring Challenge match earlier this month.
On her WBBL debut, against the Melbourne Renegades, Bray was held back until the ninth over by her idol, Sydney Sixers captain Ellyse Perry. Perry introduced Bray immediately after Courtney Grace Sippel’s double strike in the eighth over.
Deandra Dottin, who hit the most sixes at the recently concluded T20 World Cup, was new to the crease when Bray came on. A legend of the game, Dottin had made her international debut in June 2008, more than a year before Bray was born, in September 2009.
Here, Dottin went after Bray from the onset, putting the first three balls away for six, four, four. Bray followed with a wide before pulling things back with two dot balls. Bray’s last ball was a straight, perfectly pitched yorker. Dottin brought her bat down, but it was not enough as the ball hit the stumps.
Perry took Bray away after that over. Georgia Wareham (61 in 31 balls) took the Renegades to 178-8 as Perry finished with 2-25, Sippel with 2-33, and Sophie Ecclestone with 2-35. At the time of writing, the Sixers were 66-0 in 6.3 overs with Perry (38) and Hollie Armitage (25) at the crease.
Watch 15-year-old Caoimhe Bray bowl Deandra Dottin on WBBL debut:
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