Hi, I’m Duncan Fraser and I’m the lead coach for women’s & girls’ cricket at Radlett. Three varied and interesting things about me:
1. I have a degree in sport & exercise science from
Exeter University
2. I have been working as a professional Jazz Trumpeter for over 15 years
3. In the winter months, I compete in the sport of Canicross (cross-country running with a dog) and in 2023/24 my Dalmatian (Dizzy) and I ranked 9th in Great Britain!
I have always lived reasonably locally, growing up in Park Street and starting my cricketing journey at Aldenham School and at Radlett back in 1998. I have been coaching, specialising in Women’s & Girls cricket since 2017.

2. Why did you start coaching and women’s cricket in particular?

I started coaching women’s cricket as I found the sport very interesting, completely different to the men’s version which I was finding less and less interesting the more I watched and played.
It re-invigorated my love for cricket really. Around this time my wife Suzie (Radlett’s welfare officer) also got into playing, so it was a great opportunity to try and develop some sides she could be involved with too.

3. Tell us about your Radlett Women’s and Girls coaching story.

I started coaching the girls at Radlett in 2018 after the club’s ladies’ section sadly disbanded. Back then there were only a handful of girls, barely enough to scrape a side together and we were made up of girls all sorts of ages playing in one softball side. They made it to the League Final that year though and this encouraged them to stick around and bring a few friends too.
Six Years and one pandemic later, none of these girls are still around as they are all at university. Their legacy they’ve left though are the girls they inspired to come and play! We now have over 40 girls playing regularly at Radlett in four sides, three hardball teams (U15, U13A & U13B) and one softball team (U11s).
From this fantastic collection of girls, nine have represented Hertfordshire, and one been involved in the Sunrisers EPP. Radlett girls dominated the Hertfordshire Cricket Awards 2023: Ellie Padayachy, Caitlin O’Keefe & Jessica Davis winning the U11 batting, U13 batting & U13 bowling awards respectively.

4 . What next for girls and women’s cricket at Radlett?

2025 will excitingly see the re-introduction of the Radlett women’s team playing in the brand new Herts Women’s league!! We are looking for girls and women who might be up for playing some league cricket on Sunday afternoons next season!

5. Where do you see it in Five years time?

The Five Year plan will be to keep growing numbers of girls well upwards of 50 members, playing in six girls teams which feeds a competitive women’s team made up of both senior and junior female members. As the section grows the relationship between men’s and women’s sections needs to evolve, many hockey clubs locally give us a great structure to work to, and I hope more women and girls can become part of how we run Radlett cricket club and involved in coaching and running sides (boys AND girls!)

9. What’s the best bit about being a cricket coach?

I don’t know the best bit about being a cricket coach. What we are building at Radlett is a community of people who really buy into the vision that I see for women’s cricket at the club and want to be a part of it - that’s pretty special. We all love seeing the girls enjoy their cricket but also develop those all-important social bonds through being part of our club.

10. Whats the one thing that would make a big difference to girls’ cricket (in general)

That is a HUGE question! I can’t pick one thing…

Professionally - equal pay. Being able to train all year round as a cricketer would make a huge impact on the depth of talent in the game.

At club level - More women involved in running/officiating/coaching cricket. Currently the girls league meetings I attend are 95% males, doing our absolute best to decide how teenage girls might want cricket presented to them. The same for the women who play in leagues, they are officiated by men the vast majority of times. Coaching is a little better, we were so lucky to have Amy Price come back and help the girls over the winter and it makes such a difference having a young female coach to work with the girls. The girls we have at Radlett all see cricket in a completely different way than I ever can, so having young female coaches/managers/umpires who’ve gone through their experience would be amazing and really boost our sport to the next level to compete alongside Hockey/Netball etc. as mainstream sports.

11. Any closing thoughts….?
As you can read from this, we are very ambitious about developing a truly integrated cricket club at Radlett, a very rare thing indeed! We can’t do this without help. So if you are interested in coaching, scoring or officiating then we’d love to hear from you, female only courses for these things are available and I can help you find one locally! A big ask, so if it’s not for you, a really easy thing to do to help develop our club is just to shout about all the fantastic things going on. Tell people about our girls section, come out and watch the women’s side play next year and ask them how their season is going!

Many thanks to Duncan and everyone involved. Well done to all the girls and women involved, especially our award winners! If you’re interested in supporting Duncan or playing, please contact Duncan via the website at: https://www.radlettcc.com/contact