The new intake for the Western Storm EPP and Academy that have recently been announced which includes several girls who have developed their cricket playing through the Somerset Pathway.

To find out more we caught up with Kieran Peters who is the Somerset CCC Pathway Coach and Women and Girls Lead.

Kieran said: “The Somerset Girls Pathway feeds into Western Storm, which includes their Emerging Player Programme (EPP) and their Academy every year and we have had girls selected onto both of the programmes.

“Three girls have been selected onto the Western Storm Academy while another eight players from the Somerset Pathway have been selected onto the EPP, all of which is great news.”

The three Somerset girls on the Academy are Jess Hazell, Lilly Hawkins, and Lola Harris, while the eight on the EPP are Katie Rowe, Verity Clark, Laila Moledina, Evie Dixon, Alice Bird, Ava Ojomoh, Emma Phillipson, and Brooke Whittaker.

Kieran talked briefly about each of the Academy players in turn.

“Jess Hazell has been reselected onto the academy and is a keeper batter who has been through the Pathway as a player and played “multiple seasons of county women’s cricket for Somerset and is currently at Exeter University 

“Lola Harris has also been re-selected onto the academy and is a leg spinner who has played under 18s cricket for several seasons”.

“Both Jess & Lola have been selected onto the academy every year since the regional structure was implemented back in 2019/2020, which is a fantastic achievement for them both”.

“Lilly Hawkins has transitioned from the Storm and Somerset EPP and been selected for an academy spot, she is a batter who can also keep wicket, who is on the Pathway and was one of the two captains of the Somerset Under 18 girls team last summer.

He also expanded a little on each of those invited onto the Western Storm EPP

“Verity Clark, is a bowling all-rounder, Laila Moledina is a batting all-rounder, Evie Dixon is an off spinner, Alice Bird is a pace bowler, Ava Ojomoh is a pace bowler, Emma Phillipson is a ‘keeper batter and Brooke Whittaker is a batter. Katie Rowe, who is a batter, was invited to observation days with Western Storm and as a result has been selected for her first year onto the EPP.”

Kieran went on: “Of course we are delighted for all these girls and it’s really exciting to see lots of Somerset representation across both Western Storm Programs. We want to be the county that has got the pathway that has the greatest number of girls on Storm programmes and the county that has as much representation as possible.

He added: “The base of our pyramid on the Somerset Girls Pathway has massively widened over the past two years the purpose of which is that we can hopefully identify more cricketers who have the potential to transition through our pathway and move up through to those higher levels and start to work earlier with them and expose them to the way that we want to play.”