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Players from the first all-women cricket team to enter the Lancashire League have said they are “very excited” to make history.

The team at Ramsbottom Cricket Club will face all-men and mixed-gender sides in the league’s Third XI section during the 2024 season.

Club officials said they made the decision to “develop the women’s team as quickly as possible” after winning all games when they were crowned champions of the Women’s Lancashire Cricket Foundation League last season.

Captain Daisy Hunt said the team, which was set up in 2020, had “lofty ambitions for the year ahead”.

While the club believes the future of women's cricket is women playing against women regularly in a competitive league, it felt an interim solution was required to help progress the female players Ramsbottom has attracted.

As well as playing in the Lancashire League, the women's and girls' first XI will continue to compete in the women's Lancashire Cricket Foundation League next season, where they will aim to retain the trophies they won this year.

“At the end of last season, we decided that, with the talent in our squad, we needed to take another step forward to challenge ourselves and continue to improve," Hunt said.

Her teammate Maeve Jones told ���˿��� North West Tonight: “The club is very much onboard with this because it obviously puts Ramsbottom out there - that we’re the history-making team to do this and the fans are very much just as excited as we are.

“I think it shows that - for any other teams out there where women’s sides are set up - you can do it, if you put your mind to it.”

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