Smile Group Travel partners with The Cricketer for a big summer of domestic women's cricket

This summer our coverage of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy and Charlotte Edwards Cup are brought to you in partnership with Smile Group Travel

The Cricketer | 12/05/2023 at 12:00

With the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy firing on all cylinders and the Charlotte Edwards Cup just around the corner, women's domestic cricket is in the spotlight.

And this summer, all our coverage of those competitions will be brought to you in partnership with Smile Group Travel.

Smile is a specialist operator of sports and activity tours – providing long haul, short haul and UK excursions for cricket teams and fans of all ages – with a clear commitment to supporting the growth of the women's game in particular.

"Girl's and women's cricket has been a great interest of mine, particularly since I coached Hayley Matthews at an early stage of her career," said Graeme Walker, MD of Smile.

"It is no surprise to me that she has gone on to such success.

"As part of our commitment to female cricket, we were delighted to welcome Georgina Clark, ex-General Manager of Western Storm and Team Manager of the Welsh Fire Women's Team, to Smile as our Operations Director."

Clark said: "It's clear that The Cricketer is leading the way in its coverage of the women's game. Partnering with The Cricketer for its coverage feels a natural fit for Smile."

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^{Dubai is among the tour locations offered by Smile Group Travel}

"During my time at Storm and Fire it was a privilege to be a small part of the rapid professionalisation of women's domestic cricket, and to see the huge growth in participation of women and girls in cricket over the last few years.

"It's important to me that these women's and girl's teams (whether professional, school or club teams) get the best possible service and dedicated interest whether making their first foray into touring abroad, joining one of our UK competitions or festivals, or are seasoned tourers already, with the confidence that as an organisation we are also vested in their ambitions."

Having already enabled a number of schools, county age group, national, regional and university teams to go on international tours, Graeme Walker is confident that Smile has the largest and most impressive range of tours for female teams.

"We are also planning festivals, tournaments and training camps in such exciting places as Cape Town, Barbados, Spain and Isle of Wight,” said Walker.

"Additionally, we are actively supporting the sport through our sponsorship of Diamonds regional team and the Girls U17 National Schools Trophy - the finals for which are to be held at Arundel on June 26."

For more information on Smile Group Travel, specialists in women's and girl's cricket, visit www.smilegrouptravel.com