Hard yards pay off for rising Stars allrounder Flintoff

While most of her state teammates were still enjoying a well-earned break following the end of the 2021-22 summer, Tess Flintoff was already back at the CitiPower Centre, grafting away.

The 19-year-old allrounder was determined to make sure she entered the official preseason fitter and stronger than ever, which meant hitting the Cricket Victoria gym ahead of schedule.

Now that work is beginning to pay off; since WBBL|08 began a fortnight ago, Flintoff has relished the chance to take the new-ball alongside Irish speedster Kim Garth, smacked an unbeaten 40 off 29 balls against Perth Scorchers, and pulled off an outstanding piece of in-fielding to run out England star Tammy Beaumont.

"I went in a little bit earlier this preseason and spent a little bit of extra time in the gym, just to make sure that I'm a bit stronger," Flintoff, who represented Australia A against England A last summer, told cricket.com.au.

"That helps all facets of my game, but especially bowling, just to make sure that I've got an action that's repeatable.

"Especially with more (domestic) games this summer, (that’s important) to stay on the park for longer and for the injury prevention side of things.

"It's hard to focus on yourself when we haven't really had a lot of team success, but I've been pretty lucky that I've given an opportunity with the new ball this season and it makes my job pretty easy when I've got Kim Garth up the other end.

"I absolutely love bowling in a partnership with her."

Flintoff’s hard graft did not escape the attention of her teammates; Sophie Molineux was also logging plenty of hours at Cricket Victoria during that period as she underwent rehab on her injured foot alongside Georgia Wareham, while the Aussie contracted players preparing for the Commonwealth Games had also resumed training early.

"Tessy Flintoff … she’s had a great crack, she walked into day one of off-season – not even preseason, off-season – and Wolf (Wareham) and I were there rehabbing," Molineux told The Scoop podcast last month.

"Our S&C was like, ‘what are you doing?’ and she’s like ‘I want to get big’.

"She’s an incredible athlete and she’s ready to go."

Flintoff, who debuted for the Stars aged 16 in WBBL|05, is relishing a return to a normal travel and playing schedule after two years spent entirely on the road, first in a Sydney hub in 2020 before the competition was kept out of Victoria and New South Wales by border closures in 2021.

The Stars and Renegades will play their first game in Victoria in more than 1000 days on Saturday when they meet at Ballarat’s Eastern Oval.

For some players across the two squads, it will be the first time they have ever played a WBBL game in front of a home crowd.

"We love playing the Renegades, the Melbourne rivalry is well and truly alive … we played a practice game against them to start the season and that was pretty exciting," Flintoff said.

"To play in front of family and friends is going to be even more awesome."

The Stars are still hunting their first win of the season after falling agonisingly short against Perth Scorchers and Brisbane Heat, before a washout against Sydney Thunder.

The Renegades are also desperately in need of a win after three consecutive losses, including a comprehensive eight-wicket defeat to Adelaide Strikers on Tuesday.

"I'd be lying if I said we weren't disappointed with how we’ve started in terms of where we are on the ladder," Flintoff said.

"But we're not far off it. I won’t say we’re unlucky, but a few things go our way and we’re sitting pretty, not at the bottom of the ladder.

"It’s exciting that we’re not far off and to take it to the reigning champs, the Scorchers, was big for our group, so hopefully we can get on a roll now that we do have some home games."

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