- USA Women’s Head Coach Julia Price back in USA to lead Elite Training Camp
- First group activity for any of the Women’s National programs in over a year
- Player Bubble in place throughout with strict protocols in place for COVID-safety
Following the successful staging of the USA Cricket Men’s Under 19 National Championships last week, USA Cricket is pleased to announce a three-day Elite Training Camp for the USA Women’s National Training Group to be held in Texas from today, Friday April 16th through Sunday April 18th.
The announcement of this Elite Training Camp comes shortly after the recent news from the ICC confirming that the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Sri Lanka, originally scheduled for July, has now been postponed until December 2021 to allow teams the best possible preparation for the global qualifier.
The USA Women’s National Team Head Coach, Julia Price has arrived safely back to the United States. She will be managing the implementation of the high performance program with the Senior Women’s National Training Group over the coming months, as well as travelling more extensively across the United States to visit other Women’s and Women’s Youth Players at regional cricket matches, training hubs and local academies.
All players in the USA Women’s National Training Group that was announced in February of this year were invited to join the Elite Training Camp. In light of the different challenges faced by the members of the National Training Group in respect of COVID, attendance was not made compulsory, but 21 of those players have chosen to attend and a strict COVID protocol will be in place and a Player Bubble environment will be created for the duration. Aside from bringing as many of the playing group together to discuss individual and team plans for the playing season ahead, the camp will predominantly be focused on fitness and skill development, with specialist fielding coach, Julien Fountain coming in for the full weekend.
USA Women’s National Team Head Coach, Julia Price, said, “After what has been a frustratingly long time due to COVID, we are hugely excited to get back together in person for the first time in over a year. We have a talented group coming to Texas, with a youthful feel to it as well, as 8 of the players are aged 19 or younger. The decision to postpone the Women’s World Cup Qualifier to December was a sensible one from the ICC and it will help by giving us some extra time to continue developing as a group. Before that, we have the critical T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier in September here on home soil, so, while much of our initial focus of this camp will be on fitness, fielding and skill development, we will also start to think about how we can best prepare for that important event.”
USA Cricket Operations Director, Richard Done, said, “A lot of the work and development for the Women & Girls game has been taking place off the pitch over the last year or so. For this reason it is so pleasing that we are finally able to bring together the majority of the Training Group for this Elite Training Camp. As with all of our wider Training Groups, we have a focus for all of our players in their ongoing attitude. fitness skill , and performance. That will align closely with the aims of this camp and we are incredibly pleased to have Julia Price back on American soil to be able to lead the camp and the preparation over the next few months. All of the players that are part of that program remain firmly in the plans of the selectors and coaching staff, irrespective of whether they chosen to attend this camp or not.”
“We would also like to thank both Grand Prairie Cricket Club and Lords Indoors Center for their tremendous support in hosting the camp. We are continuing to look to engage with facilities all over the country and will have a further announcement on the facility partners in the coming weeks after we had a superb response from the community from people all over the country wanting to get involved with USA Cricket.”