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“I Will Never Get Sick of Talking about the World Cup”: Nicola Carey

Australia once again won the T20 World Cup earlier this year, beating India and all-rounder Nicola Carey will never get tired of talking about the win. She believes if she retires now, there is nothing which can beat that day as it stays at the top. However, it’s not only the final but also the entire tournament that carries a lot of importance for Australia as well as Carey.

“When you think back to it, it’s pretty crazy. At the time, everything goes really quickly. You’re playing games, moving on, playing games, and I didn’t think about things. But now when I look back on it, it’s actually a pretty ridiculous tournament. From losing the first game, the injuries, the weather in the semi-final, all the talk about even getting to the semi-final,” she said to sirensport.com.au.

“Then to get to a final, and then three days later, the pandemic takes over and you can’t go to stadiums or anything like that. The whole story is pretty hectic when you think about it. It’s probably one of the best days I’ve ever had. And I’m not sure how that’s ever going to be topped in my career. So I’ll never get sick of talking about it. It was an unbelievable day,” she expressed.

Her journey so far is pretty remarkable. Being the youngest in the family, Nicola Carey recalled her time playing cricket in the backyard. She shared that when she was young, she used to play different sports like soccer and tennis. She wasn’t into cricket that much but used to go along to her elder brothers’ games and gradually fell in love with the game as well.

However, her mother was a great support while beginning. And like other girls, she used to play with boys as well and was unaware of the history of women’s cricket. She didn’t even have any idea about the opportunities for women playing the game until she started playing at her club.

“I always get asked about when I started cricket and how it was playing with the boys, but I actually loved playing with the boys, like they were really good to me. I had a lot of fun, but then moving into the women’s side of things, that was cool to see that there [were] a lot of other girls that also wanted to play cricket and there was a competition for that. So for me to be able to progress through the ranks and get to where I’m at today, it all worked out pretty sweet, I’m really happy,” she added.

 

Being a part of the New South Wales pathway showed Nicola Carey the possibilities of playing for the national team and that has certainly developed her game.

“At the time, in New South Wales, half the Australian team were playing there, so you’re surrounded by all these really good cricketers, and then you think, ‘Well, if you can match it with these athletes, you never know!’ But it probably wasn’t until they professionalised our game a bit more, and we started training a bit more, that I probably started to take it a bit more seriously.

Prior to that, we still trained a couple of nights a week and then you go off and play a handful of games in the season from New South Wales—the Big Bash wasn’t a thing at the time. But when we started training full time, well not quite, but more often, I started to see the results of that,” she recalled.

“So compared to training four hours at a night time throughout the week, compared to actually training throughout the day, having a proper program, getting in the gym, doing some running and some skills sessions—that can actually put some time and focus on things and you start to see improvements and it’s really cool. And then you start thinking, ‘Where can I take this?’,” she explained.

However, she is happy to see the grow of women’s cricket in the country where Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) has played a key role. With growing investment in the game, Australia has become the number one team in the world as well.

Currently, the entire world has been fighting against the global pandemic novel coronavirus. This has brought the world into a standstill and Nicola Carey finds it difficult amid this crunch situation despite how much they wanted a break from each other.

“It’s kind of funny because you spend so much time with your teammates and then when you don’t see them for a bit you’re like, ‘Oh I actually miss them!’. You feel like you get sick of them, because they’re in your back pocket most of the time! But when you don’t see each other, you actually start to miss being around them again,” she said.

“Usually we would have had a pre-season camp by now, and a little bit of testing, which is always fun! And you know, you spend a couple of weeks together at different times throughout the pre-season so you’re always interacting with each other. I miss that interaction and yet, at the same time, I’m sort of like grateful that I get to spend a little bit more time down in Hobart, it’s meant that I get to stay in one place for an extended period of time, which has been nice,” the all-rounder further concluded.

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