Grace Parsons, the Leggie From Lismore | WBBL10

She kept persisting and eventually got the green light and now, years on, her canny legspin bowling is set to be a weapon for the Brisbane Heat this summer.  

But it could have been a very different story.  

Parsons had to keep patience with her brothers when she was young, then morph from a seam bowler into a legspinner and then she had to sit out last season’s Women’s Big Bash with an injury to the shoulder of her bowling arm.  

“I initially wanted to play cricket because of my brothers, I was the annoying little sister who always wanted to join in and play,” Parsons laughs.  

“My brothers would never play with me because I would be too competitive with them.  

“Then I was finally allowed to play when I was ten years old.  

“When I started playing competitive cricket, I used to open the bowling with right arm medium pace seamers.   

“I never actually really bowled legspin until about five years ago.  

“But I decided that bowling spin would take me further if I wanted a career with cricket.  

“And I was also taking more wickets with spin, so it was a no brainer to switch over.”  

Parsons, whose father was a baseball coach, used her injury stint on the sidelines with a shoulder injury to add some new tricks to her game.  

Rather than sitting idle in her recovery period, she taught herself to throw left-handed.  

“Growing up around baseball, I was always throwing heaps with both arms as a young kid,” Parsons said.  

“Being out with my shoulder injury was pretty tough, but it's made me appreciative of a lot more things and it let me hone in on some other skills like throwing left-handed.  

“I probably wouldn't have done that if I hadn't hurt my shoulder.  

“Throwing left-handed wasn’t brand new to me, but it also wasn’t something I'd really done much of before.”  

Parsons, who represented Australia A in the recent India A tour of Australia, describes the tour as “an unreal experience.”  

Despite playing no elite-level T20 beforehand, Parsons clinched 4-30 in the first T20 of the multi-format series.  

She says she has never enjoyed playing cricket more and it has given her the taste of getting national honours in future.  

While she is studying a university degree to become a schoolteacher, Parsons insists she wants to give her cricket career a red-hot crack.  

“We (women) are pretty lucky with how far cricket has come, in the sense that we get to do it as a job these days,” Parsons said.  

“Growing up, I always wanted to be a teacher and I am studying that on the side at the moment to keep my brain ticking over.  

“That way, if all else fails with my cricket, I do have a backup plan.  

“But I want to keep going with cricket as long as I can.”  

So in her mind’s eye, what is Parsons' perfect delivery?  

She doesn’t take long to answer – she has visualised it many times.  

“It is a ball drifting in towards leg stump and then spinning away and hitting offstump,” she smiles.  

“Mind you, I also do love a good stumping.  

“I want to take wickets every ball if I can.  

“Being a wicket-taker for our team is very important to me.”