Cricket Community Pays Tribute to Emma Thompson

Media release – Cricket Tasmania, 29 March 2023

CT acknowledges the groundbreaking career of Emma Thompson

With the 2022-23 cricket season nearly at a close, the many milestones and achievements of Tasmania’s top cricketers will be celebrated at the Cricket Tasmania Awards Night this Friday.

Once of the most notable celebrations will be of the career of Emma Thompson, who announced that her 13-year elite career with Tasmania would come to an end last month, following the Tigers’ epic back-to-back WNCL title win against South Australia.

Thompson will be celebrated surrounded by her family, teammates and the wider Tasmanian cricket family on Friday evening. Please see below for a summary of her trailblazing career:

The week of the 2022-23 Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL) Final was undisputedly hectic for Emma Thompson. Being a full-time athlete and a full-time mum to nearly 18-month-old Evie meant life was always hectic, but this particular week Thompson had something else to get off her chest – win, lose or draw, the upcoming Final would be Thompson’s last of professional cricket.

Making the decision on her own terms was important, as was letting her teammates know, however Thompson was adamant about one thing – it would not be discussed publicly prior to the final ball being bowled on Saturday. Any outside noise should be about the team, and their plans to make history by being the only team in the competition to win back-to-back titles besides New South Wales.

In a match that had everything, at times Thompson’s fairtytale finish seemed unlikely, but in the end, it was a fitting final walk from the field for one of the pioneers of Tasmanian women’s cricket – applauded off the field in her final match as a WNCL Champion.

Although born in Sydney and playing all of her junior cricket in New South Wales, the name Emma Thompson always be synonymous with cricket in Tasmania.

After being a fixture of the New South Wales Under 17 and Under 19 set ups – ironically, alongside the likes of Tigers’ final-over hero, Sarah Coyte – Thompson became one of the first female cricketing trailblazers to move permanently to Tasmania to further her cricketing career. Except in those days, contracts for female players weren’t a thing.

A new physiotherapy graduate, Thompson secured a graduate role at the Royal Hobart Hospital, working full-time and training when she could around that – as was the norm for domestic female cricketers just over a decade ago.

The now final remaining player from the original Tasmanian Roar side (what the Tigers’ female program was then known as), Thompson made her debut for her newly-adopted state in the 2009-10 season, when the Roar first joined the Australian Women’s Twenty20 Cup – the national women’s T20 competition before the inception of the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL).

The following season; 2010-11, the Roar entered into the WNCL for the first time, with Thompson making her 50-over debut for Tasmania on October 16, 2010, in the team’s first-ever game in the competition. Against a dominant New South Wales side that were in the midst of a 10-year Championship-winning streak, the Roar went down by seven wickets in that first game, but a platform was set for the Tasmanians to be the first team to win consecutive titles in 12 years’ time.

Admittedly Thompson and her pioneering teammates saw some lean times over the years, finishing either last or second-last in the competition standings during their first eight seasons in the WNCL competition. Thompson, however, was a shining light and permanent fixture in the side, building a reputation as a pivotal batter, medium pace bowling option, and sound fielder. Across her WNCL career she made 919 runs, took 12 wickets, as well as 24 catches in Tigers colours.

A pioneer for women’s cricket in many ways, one of the greatest impacts Thompson had on the game was towards the end of her career, when she became the first WNCL-contracted player to use Cricket Australia’s parental leave policy. After taking the 2021-22 season away from cricket and giving birth to baby Evie, Thompson made the decision to return to the Tigers program, and to have a shot at potentially being a part of another history-making Tasmanian side, after she’d sat on the sidelines with Evie and watched the Tigers historically lift the WNCL trophy for the first time in the organisation’s history the year before.

Fittingly, the games Thompson played in the final year of her career saw her re-take the mantle as Tasmania’s most-capped WNCL player, with 64 appearances in the green, red and gold to her name. Thompson 64 games eclipse’s 2021-22 retiree, Corinne Hall, of this record, with Hall overtaking Thompson’s then-record of 62 appearances when she took to the game in her final match of professional cricket in the 2021-22 WNCL Final.

Thompson is also part of a unique group of players who were not only part of the Tasmanian Roar/Tigers inaugural side, but also the Hobart Hurricanes. When the WBBL commenced in 2015, Thompson signed on as a foundation player with the Tasmanian franchise, going on to play 34 matches across four seasons of the WBBL, the most recent being in WBBL|06.

Cricket Tasmania would like to thank Emma for the incredible contribution she has made to Tasmanian cricket over the past 12 seasons. In sport, fairytale finishes are not bestowed on many, however we couldn’t be more thrilled to see such a great servant of Tasmanian cricket go out on the ultimate high.

The name Emma Thompson truly will be remembered as a trailblazer of Tasmanian women’s cricket for years to come.