What about deaf women? How one mum changed cricket

Melissa Hale smiles when she thinks back to the 'terms of agreement' she drew up when she was approached to become secretary of the Melbourne Deaf Cricket Club (MDCC) way back in late 2005. It was unquestionably a power move – direct, and definitive – and as far as she was concerned, MDCC could take it or leave it.

By then though, Melissa had spent a good few years in and around the deaf community, and she was developing the confidence and knowhow required to begin shaking foundations on the way to instigating meaningful change.

As the incoming president of MDCC and a new dad to twin boys, James Hale – Melissa's future husband, but at that point just a friend and colleague – badly needed a secretary. Melissa, he knew, had skills, which she had demonstrated while filling the role on a temporary basis the previous year.

But during that first stint at MDCC, Melissa had seen the potential for the long-time Melbourne deaf institution to become a more inclusive and important part of the city's deaf community. So when James came knocking second time around, her no-uncertain-terms of agreement had already crystallised in her mind.

"I'd found my first year there to be equal parts eye-opening and frustrating," the 39-year-old mum of four tells cricket.com.au.

"Eye-opening because I realised MDCC was much more than just a cricket club – it was a place where there was a strong sense of family, belonging and community, a place where deaf and hard of hearing people go and just be their true selves. People often joined and never left.

"But it was frustrating because there was no other female involvement. It was very much a boys club, and while they appreciated me doing all the paperwork and getting things in order, there was an attitude of: Thank you very much, now leave it to us men.

"There was no capacity for me to influence change, and no openness to look at what it meant to include women. So I left after that first year."

But with James's appointment as club president, Melissa sensed an opportunity.

"Becoming a father had changed his world view," she adds. "He had a vision that MDCC needed to stop being a boys club, start serving the deaf community better, and become a cricket club for everyone; men, women and – most importantly – families," she continues.

"He wanted nothing more than to feel the joy of MDCC being open to everyone and recognised that in its current state, it wasn't going to change.

"He asked me to come back on board as secretary. I sent him a long list of things I would and wouldn't do if I joined – including the requirement that he and others hear me, don't patronise me, and treat me with respect as an equal.

"He agreed to my terms, and I jumped on board."

For Melissa, James and MDCC, it was the first step in a dramatic shift in trajectory that went well beyond the cricket field.

* * *

Melissa Hale's parents met in 1980, at a wedding in their hometown of Adelaide which, as it happened, was quite the family affair; her dad's sister was marrying her mum's brother.

After her mum relocated to Melbourne to continue the relationship, she fell pregnant with Melissa. Back in Adelaide, the newlyweds were also expecting. Melissa and her cousin were born eight weeks apart. Yet there was a twist in the usual tale.

"It was discovered we were both born with hearing loss," she explains. "It turns out the genetic mix from the two family lines had created a gene mutation so that any children born from those unions would be deaf children."

Melissa and her cousin experienced vastly different upbringings, as their respective parents attempted to navigate raising a deaf child in different ways, based on the advice they were offered. Where she went to mainstream schools, he went to ones with deaf facilities (a mix of hearing and deaf children). Where he was able to engage with fellow members of the deaf community, Melissa felt isolated.

"I had no connection with other deaf people my whole childhood," she explains.

"Growing up as a deaf person in a hearing family, a hearing community, and a hearing school environment taught me that I was different, that I didn't belong.

"To cope, I adopted a mindset to try and be as 'hearing' as I possibly could.

"At school, that meant grasping onto the only friends that would accept my difference, and they were the most toxic friends I could have chosen: the friends who made me say words I couldn't pronounce properly for their own or others' amusement; the friends who told me not to wear my hearing aids or speak in front of boys they liked because they didn't want them to be put off by my ears or my voice; the ones who used me to do their homework, and even their home chores, and then discarded me just as quickly.

"In the context of seeing no way out, no-one like me, I thought this was normal, that this was all I was worth – this was just life."

As a 17-year-old, Melissa was informed by an audiologist that what little hearing she had remaining was almost gone, meaning she needed to decide whether she wanted surgery to insert a Cochlear implant.

"But because I had ignored it for so long and not worn my hearing aids in my quest to be invisible, there was no guarantee it would work; the science says it's really important to use the technology available to you to maximise the hearing you do have, because that way your brain 'remembers' how to process and interpret sounds.

"This was a time where I really struggled. I couldn't imagine becoming more isolated than I already felt, which I saw happening if I lost all ability to communicate with my friends and family – I couldn't sign and neither could anyone else around me."

School finished, and Melissa was quickly dumped by her supposed friends. It proved a weight lifted though, in the sense that she no longer had peers she felt she needed to impress. Instead, she shifted her attentions to her university studies; with an inner belief in her own intelligence, it was a refreshing new focus.

Then, with the cochlear implant surgery she had decided to forge ahead with just months away, the path Melissa was walking in life intersected with sport.

Not for the last time, it proved a saviour.

"My deaf cousin in South Australia had invited me to come over for a national deaf basketball tournament," she remembers. "I went to see him, because at that point I had nothing to lose.

"That weekend changed my life. I met so many people who were just like me. Some could speak, some could sign, but it didn't matter.

"I remember sitting on the spectator bench and being surrounded by people who just wanted to talk to me, and get to know me.

"They made me feel so welcome, and they treated me with so much love and kindness.

"I finally felt I could let my guard down and not have to try so hard to be someone I wasn't, which meant I could start to figure out who I really was.

"I didn't eat or sleep for three days because I had found my people; I'd found real friendships that I still cherish today.

"While I went ahead with the Cochlear implant operation, and it thankfully did work – within a year and an awful lot of hard work I was up to hearing 70 per cent of speech – I no longer cared so much about the outcome because I knew I was going to be OK."

* * *

By 2006, a 24-year-old Melissa was working as the personal assistant to the CEO at the Victorian Deaf Society. Armed with a degree in social sciences, a new ability to sign, and four years' experience in the industry, she was fast establishing herself as the type of employee who got things done.

And so back to MDCC, and her commitment to join James – who was also born deaf – in building out the new vision for the club.

"I actually hated cricket," she remembers with a laugh. "I really was only there because I'd immersed myself in all things deaf community. I had no idea about the sport itself."

It mattered little. Across the next six years, Melissa and James became a formidable team as they set about putting their plans into practice. Throughout, as their separate lives as partners and new parents handed them no shortage of challenges – to the point that their respective marriages ended – they were able to maintain a commitment to what had become a mutual dream for MDCC.

Through shared values, and their belief in and passion for what they were doing, their friendship developed into "real and solid love".

"Almost 10 years down the track," Melissa adds, "we are happily married, and a happy blended family."

To the family Melissa brought her son Alex (14) and daughter Charli (12), while James added twin boys Lachlan and Rylan (15), all of whom have normal hearing.

"When the kids were young, they were very much involved in all our cricket activities," Melissa says. "People knew we'd arrived at Cricket Victoria or at MDCC because they'd see four young kids taking over a cricket net, bashing around stray balls, while James and I sat in cricket meetings or organised and ran training sessions.

"Our deaf cricket community helped make that possible; our kids all made connections with them and the wider cricket community in this way, everyone chipped in to help us wrangle the kids, and they loved it."

Parenting is but another aspect of Melissa's life she feels incredibly passionate about, and so she takes a considered and loving approach to the role. She looks to help solve problems through communication, and tries to constantly remind her kids that they are loved, valued and supported.

"I want my children to know they are always enough," she says.

"They are four incredible individuals in their own right, and I want them to always stay true to who they are, to never try to be something they're not, and to always have empathy for other people.

"I want them to always make up their own minds about things, call things out if they feel something is not right, but to always be open to hearing other perspectives, unusual voices and to never be afraid to change their opinions.

"I know they will each change the world in their own ways. They are our pride and joy."

As her kids grew and her involvement in their lives remained a busy and central focus, Melissa was unwavering in her commitment to the original vision she'd had for MDCC. But in one aspect, she felt cricket was still falling short. Typically, the woman who lists Jacinda Ardern and Julia Gillard among her role models for their ability to "get things done despite the noise" was forward in her approach to creating the change she believed was needed.

At a major planning meeting for the Cricket Australia-backed 2019 National Cricket Inclusion Championships (NCIC) – a fully-funded annual state-based competition for deaf men, blind men and men with intellectual disabilities – Melissa spoke up.

"I had used my skills to support the deaf cricket community and it was mostly for deaf boys and men," she explains.

Cricket Australia had initiated the NCIC, and had fully funded the Australian deaf men's team to play in the World Cup, as they did for the national men's blind and ID teams.

"So at one planning meeting for all this, I said: 'Well, what about deaf women?'"

* * *

In January 2020, a year after that initial suggestion, Deaf Cricket Australia unveiled the Melissa Hale Cup – the trophy up for grabs between the deaf women's state sides at the NCIC.

Melissa's backroom boldness had paid instant dividends, with Cricket Australia challenging her to come up with two deaf women's XIs at that year's NCIC. If she could manage that, they promised her, they would set up an exhibition match at the tournament's opening ceremony.

"I reached out to my network in the deaf community to see how many deaf women and girls would be interested in giving it a go," Melissa recalls.

"Within 48 hours, we had two teams."

The women got their game; a modified version of Twenty20 which, according to Melissa, they all played "fairly badly, given most had never had the opportunity to pick up a ball or bat before".

"But something remarkable happened," she adds. "Through the whole competition that week, it was all the sponsors, cricket community and local community could talk about.

"This gave me the platform and leverage to advocate for this to continue, but in a slower and modified way that worked for deaf women and girls."

Melissa jumped on board with Deaf Cricket Australia as their Head of Deaf Women's Cricket, taking on the responsibility of ensuring the men's and women's programs were being organised at the same pace through the NCIC.

Typically, it came with its challenges, but the 2020 Melissa Hale Cup proved to be one of her proudest moments.

"I cannot describe the feelings that went through me," she says. "Just a mixture of overwhelming shock and pride.

"Unbeknownst to me, they had sought the agreement of deaf women players across the country on how to name the Cup and that's what they landed on.

"But of course it was about a lot more than me, so I made sure the competition was enshrined with three key values: empowerment; sisterhood/brotherhood/power of community; and having fun."

Those principles aren't dissimilar from Melissa's broader life philosophy, which through her childhood experiences and from the wisdom she has gained as an adult, and particularly a mum, evolved to put inclusiveness at the forefront.

"There's not much that can't be solved without genuine inclusion, kindness and recognising the power of belonging to something," she says. "If you feel like you belong somewhere, you're included, and you're shown kindness, you can thrive, and then you will give inclusion and kindness to others in return.

"If I really look at why I have worked as hard as what I have on this, and why it worked so well, it was less about cricket, and more about creating spaces for people to feel like they belong."

* * *

The Melissa Hale Cup was just a single step on what its namesake knows will be a long and winding road. And so she continues to plug away at what is shaping as her life's work. On a macro level, she hopes its apogee is one day reached in the form of a deaf women's World Cup. But more immediately, and closer to home, Melissa is looking at creating better access to local cricket clubs and teams for young deaf girls, for whom the cricket pathway is currently the reverse of what the rest of us experience.

"The pathway for a deaf person – particularly a deaf woman or girl – starts with playing cricket with your state deaf team, against other state deaf teams where the competition is inclusive and safe," she explains.

"Once confidence and skills are developed this way, women and girls might start to play locally – either forming a deaf cricket team themselves to play in a mainstream competition (like at MDCC) or joining a mainstream cricket club in groups, which is much trickier and doesn't always work.

"This goes against the system and the traditional way of doing things. Many state cricket associations have trouble understanding this, and this is the biggest challenge that is really threatening to derail us.

"The success of this competition relies on the ability of state cricket associations to adapt and understand that for this to work, and for their work to be inclusive, they need to meet deaf women where they are – essentially flipping the current pathway on its head to create a space for skills to grow.

"If we can get this right, I have no doubt we'll have a thriving competition in the years to come, but it will take time to grow and develop. It won't happen overnight."

Alongside its role as a focal point in her crusade, MDCC also continues to serve as a place for Melissa to unwind and enjoy that sense of community and belonging she has worked so hard to foster.

She plays in the same team as her daughter Charli – whom she jokes "secretly loves playing with her mum" – and they are coached by James. She has watched the way Charli has come to interact so naturally with her deaf and hard of hearing teammates, and it gives her hope for what might lie ahead, and inspiration to keep engendering change.

"She's a fantastic player – a bowler especially," Melissa smiles. "And despite encouragement to join a local girls cricket team, she wanted to stick with MDCC because the friendships and role models she has access to, and the community feel of belonging to somewhere that completely understands her way of life, not just as a girl, but as a child of deaf adults (CODA), was really attractive to her.

"It actually makes her quite mad she's not eligible to play for the Victorian Deaf Women's Cricket team, and I really do feel for her. However, she's slowly starting to understand that the barriers deaf women and girls face in this world are not the same barriers she will ever face."

There is another girl at MDCC whose journey Melissa has also enjoyed observing. In this young woman she sees a part of herself, a part of what the club means, and another cause for optimism on that road ahead.

"Her deaf parents brought her to MDCC to join deaf women's cricket when she was 15," Melissa says. "At her first training session she was so shy, and reluctant to participate.

"Her mother, who is also deaf, divulged that she actually had some really good skills, and she had joined her local cricket club, but she had been so badly bullied and excluded that she left and never wanted to play again.

"However, with inclusion, kindness and the power of the community around her at MDCC, she has blossomed into one of our star players. She's made so many friendships in the club, and now she is a much loved and valued member of MDCC and the Victorian Deaf Women's Cricket team.

"At the NCIC, we were fortunate enough to have (Victoria women's player) Elyse Villani visit the deaf women's teams to talk about her journey, and this girl got up in front of everyone and told Elyse what she had been through with the junior cricket club.

"She then asked her how she can bypass all of that and simply be the best she can be.

"I have never, in the whole of this journey, been prouder than I was at that moment.

"This is what deaf women's cricket is all about; not the cricket skills, but what the vehicle of cricket can give to someone's life.

"One day, when I'm really old and sitting on the sidelines, I'd love to watch her take over and run the whole show – and it's my belief that with the values we operate on, she absolutely will."