The Australian women’s cricket team is one of the nation’s most successful and admired sporting sides. However, before Meg Lanning’s XI lit up the Melbourne Cricket Ground in front of more than 86,000 adoring fans on 8 March 2020, a long innings of unsung grit, nous and passion was played. Clearing Boundaries traces the strong lineage of Australian females in cricket from the 19th century through to the watershed 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup. A curated collection of stories – covering memorable series, matches, innings, spells and moments – celebrates generations of pioneers across five distinct eras. Presenting over 220 images, it is the first illustrated book dedicated to Australian women’s cricket. Many historical photographs previously inaccessible to the public have been given a new life in Clearing Boundaries thanks to the Bradman Museum’s Holman Collection and players’ private collections donated to the Museum. Also featured are the statistical records of every woman to represent Australia on the cricket field and a foreword from one of the country’s greatest cricketers, Belinda Clark AO. Clearing Boundaries is the first ever coffee-table style book dedicated to women’s cricket, and the first literary update on the history of the women’s game in Australia for nearly 30 years. With remarkable tales and inspirational images, Clearing Boundaries shines a light on more than a century of unheralded cricket stories to help the women’s game take its rightful place in Australian sporting history.
