Gun Cricketer Molly Ward to Represent Victorian Indigenous Team

GEGAC’s Molly Ward, second from right, with teammates from the Victorian Indigenous Cricket Team.

Aboriginal people have a proud sporting tradition, and rank among some of Australia’s most famous and talented athletes, particularly in sports like track and field, all codes of football, basketball, netball, boxing and hockey.

Aboriginal people’s relationship with cricket, though, has been more complicated.

On the one hand, only eight First Nations men and women have represented Australia in international cricket across all formats.

On the other hand, did you know the very first Australian cricket team to travel overseas was an Aboriginal team?

It was made up of Jardwadjali, Gunditjmara and Wotjobaluk stockmen who had learned the game on Victorian cattle stations.

The lads went to England and played 47 matches against English teams between May and October 1868, a full 10 years before a non-Aboriginal Australian team travelled to England to play an official test match.

Deadly.

So, turns out Aboriginal people have a long and rich history with cricket.

Now, GEGAC is celebrating one young gun cricketer in our community!

Molly Ward, who joined GEGAC earlier this year as a Koorie Kare Field Worker, has been selected to represent Victoria in the 2025 National Indigenous Cricket Championships.

To be held on Yuwibara Country in Mackay, QLD, in April, the championships bring together the best Indigenous cricketers from across the country.

For Molly, this isn’t her first rodeo, having debuted for Victoria at the championships back in 2015, as a 14-year-old.

A GunaiKurnai woman whose family hails from Bruthen, Molly got her start playing for the Lucknow Cricket Club.

“There weren’t really any girls playing around here back then,” she said. “I think it was just me and (current Australian test cricketer) Sophie Molineux.”

A top order bat and occasional bowler, Molly went on to play high level cricket for many years, including with the Prahran Firsts in the Victorian Premier Cricket Women’s Comp, and in Vanuatu and Samoa with Cricket Without Borders.

But she says her time at the Indigenous Championships are some of her best memories of her playing career.

“It’s really special connecting with girls from all the other mobs,” she says. “We do a lot of cultural things, the smoking ceremonies, it’s great to be a part of.”

Molly said one of her favourite memories was at a previous championships in Alice Springs, where players visited Aboriginal communities to play and teach cricket with the kids there.

“They were all speaking in language,” Molly says. “I thought that was pretty cool. You’ve got this big group of kids all playing cricket together, and communicating only through their cultural language.”

When asked who her cricketing heroes have been as a player, Molly’s answer tells you a lot about her as a person.

“Probably all females in cricket that have come from smaller towns that were striving to play at a higher level,” she said.

For the past few years Molly has been farming in the Sale area, but a good friend recommended her to a Koorie Kare role at GEGAC, and she jumped at the opportunity.

We’re stoked she did.

“I’ve always had a passion for kids, and the team here has been really great,” Molly says. “My approach has been to just keep asking questions! Anything I don’t know, the team has been happy to help me.”

With an interesting background and a great attitude toward learning, Molly is the just the kind of person we love to welcome to the GEGAC family.

Good luck up there on Yuwibara Country, Molly! We’ll be cheering for you.