Comparisons in sport are inevitable. Sometimes, for emerging players, they aren’t helpful. Being compared to Ellyse Perry would seem to be up there with the most daunting of prospects. Yet 15-year-old allrounder Caoimhe Bray, who put in a starring performance when she became the youngest WBBL player in history on Sunday for Sydney Sixers, is embracing it.
“No, I love it,” she said prior to her debut where she claimed Deandra Dottin’s wicket and hit the winning runs. “Ellyse Perry’s definitely been a role model of mine since I was very, very young. I think if you ask all my primary school friends, every school project was about her, that’s for sure. I don’t think it’s anything like scary or overwhelming being compared to her because she’s such a great person and I just love that people are even saying it.
“I feel like there can’t be too much pressure coming from it…I just try to do the best I can and I mean, being compared to Ellyse Perry is obviously super cool but in the end, I still am my own person and I just try to do what I can.”
Four years ago, Bray was getting selfies with the Australian team at the T20 World Cup. “I think that day Ellyse actually got out for a golden duck and I remember mum telling me that I was crying in the stands when that happened.”
Now, on Sunday at Adelaide Oval, Perry handed Bray her cap – “I was crying a little bit, maybe more than a little bit,” she told Seven afterwards – and was stood next her as she prepared to bowl her first over. Her first ball was pulled for six by Dottin, the second was edged and should have been caught by Sarah Bryce and third was bludgeoned down the ground. But Bray responded by closing out the over with a perfect yorker into the base of middle stump.
“My first over was a bit dodgy…but pretty happy with the wicket,” she said. “Think I had to redeem myself for the ones before that.”
Then, with 32 needed off 20 balls, after Perry had played a blinder with 81 off 38, she walked in and drove her second ball for four. Bryce made a huge dent in the requirement with four boundaries in six balls and Bray sealed victory with a lofted drive over the off side.
“There’s not much expectation on me because I’m so young, but obviously still want to do well, and I was like, guess I’ll go for it, not many runs needed and, yeah, went pretty well,” she said.
“For a 15-year-old to hit a ball over extra cover to win the game is amazing,” Perry told Seven. “She bowled really well too. She’s a really special kid.”
Like Perry, Bray is also a hugely talented footballer who has represented the Junior Matildas. Despite a three-year deal with Sixers she wants to continue her dual sport career. “I did get a few questions actually after I got signed for the Sixers,” she said last week. “They’re like, so, are you still playing soccer? I want to keep doing them both for as long as I can and I think this WBBL contract isn’t going to stop me from playing soccer.”
Given the commute from home in Newcastle is not practical during the WBBL, Bray will be staying in Coogee with other interstate and overseas players for the duration of the competition. Her Mum, Kim, will with be with her, with Dad, Gavin, dropping in occasionally. Both were in Adelaide on Sunday. She will do her schoolwork online.
It has been an extraordinarily rapid rise for Bray, it can barely be anything else for a 15-year-old. Born in Denman, in the New South Wales Hunter Region, Bray was playing junior club cricket for her Under-11 side aged eight.
Last season she amassed 955 runs in the NSW Under-18 Brewer Shield and capped the season with 202 off 134 balls to lead Greater Hunter Central Coast to the title. In September she was part of the Australia Under-19 squad for a tri-series in Brisbane where she produced a standout all-round display against New Zealand with 84 and 4 for 20.
Next was a spot in the Sixers’ T20 Spring Challenge squad where she claimed five wickets in four games, including that of Laura Harris the game after she had scored 102 off 46 balls. One of the notable early impressions she has made is with the pace she bowls at. The speed gun clocked her at 112kph on Sunday.
With so much having happened in a short space of time, has she had a chance to step back and reflect? “I actually don’t think I really have,” she said. “It definitely has come around really quickly. I haven’t been home much either, but I’m not complaining. I love doing sports.”
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo