BIG GAME HUNTER

Ireland star has clear targets and a  ‘hunger for batting’
 
IT’S been a sort of homecoming this weekend for Amy Hunter. The Ireland wicketkeeper/bat last week moved to Dublin where she will shortly begin a course at UCD, but she turned around fairly sharply to go back up the M1/A1 for one last appointment in her native Belfast.

Three last appointments, to be precise, as Ireland women play host to England in a triad of ODIs at Stormont starting today.

Hunter will be very keen to say goodbye with one of the big innings that have made her such an important part of Ed Joyce’s young side. The 18-year-old scored 42 and 66 in the Stormont victories over Sri Lanka last month, putting her into eighth place in the all-time list of Irish batswomen, and the only one with an average over 30.

It all started just three years ago, as Hunter recalls. ‘A couple of series were cancelled because of Covid before I debuted at 15 in a series up in Stormont against Scotland. I was ecstatic, but didn’t do much.’

Hunter may not have got many runs, but she had impressed head coach Joyce: ‘Sometimes great young players come along in Ireland who are head and shoulders above their peers. It’s always very exciting but you’re never sure that they will fulfil their potential. You’re wary of putting them in too early but, even at 15, it was clear Amy was mature enough and already had what it takes at that level.’

That autumn she was in the senior squad to tour Zimbabwe, with a new role beckoning.

‘To be honest, I hadn’t given them too much reason to promote me up the order,’ admits Hunter. ‘Me and Rebecca Stokell were going for the No 3 position and Ed said we’d get two games each there against Zimbabwe. But Rebecca got injured so I was up to No 3 for the last game.’

That extra opportunity.

coincided with her 16th birthday. ‘The day before at training someone mentioned it would be my birthday, and the assistant coach Glenn Querl said “you have to get a hundred on your birthday”, to which I replied “I’d be happy with double digits”.

‘I was pretty frustrated that I hadn’t done better but I knew if I got myself in I’d do OK.

‘I batted a lot with Gaby Lewis and Laura Delany, who are great to bat with at the start of your career when you maybe don’t know your game as well as you’d like. They were both so encouraging and, as talented cricketers themselves, it took the pressure off me a bit.

‘I remember being massively relieved when I got to 50 and relaxing a bit and started to enjoy myself. I didn’t even consider I might get a hundred until I was in the 90s, but I clipped one off my legs and it was such an amazing feeling.’ That innings made her the youngest ODI centurion, male or female, in cricket history.

It’s astonishing to think that it is less than a decade since she first tasted the game, one Friday evening in Instonians.
‘I must have been eight or nine, my brothers were going down to junior day and my dad suggested I go. I loved it and it just grew from there. I played pretty much exclusively with boys until I was about 11.

‘My first all-girls game was in the Super Threes (now the Evoke Super Series, for the best 33 players in the country). That same year I was picked for Ireland U15s.’

Her coach on both teams, Rob O’Connor, has vivid memories of a burgeoning talent.

‘She was very aggressive with the bat – she wanted to hit sixes every ball. And she was well able to do it. She would smash it straight down the ground but was getting out in the 20s all the time,’ he recalls.

‘Most of our discussions were about shot selection and pacing her innings, trying to get her to realise there was nothing wrong with hitting singles!’

After her Harare hundred there was lots of support for her back in Methodist College, and more delight when she scored the winning goal in the Ulster Schools hockey cup final and went on to win the All-Ireland. ‘That was the last time I played hockey; cricket just started taking over.’

She continued playing with boys up to U15s. The Northern Cricket Union set up a women’s league, and Hunter played for a couple of seasons before she was persuaded to play her senior cricket in Leinster.

‘Aaron Hamilton was Ireland head coach at the time, and he reckoned the standard down south was much higher than up north so, to progress my cricket, I should move to Dublin. So I chose Malahide because I’d worked closely with Fintan McAllister.’

She kept a close eye on her native province and is delighted to see a resurgence in quantity and quality.

‘Cricket in schools is massive now,’ she says, ‘James Kennedy has put a massive amount into growing it so it’s the biggest sport in Methody now. I was at the women’s challenge cup final recently and there was a big crowd and a good standard of cricket. Lots of young girls there too, so it might encourage them to take it up.

More Ulster stars are on the way: ‘Abi Harrison of Waringstown is close to the senior squad but has been unlucky with injury, while Zara Craig (Eglinton) is still only 20 and very talented. Of the younger group, Rebecca Lowe and Grace Wilson from Civil Service North are very talented too.’

The next phase of Hunter’s life will be spent in Leinster, one of just 15 Ad Astra scholars at UCD. The programme is for ‘motivated students who can demonstrate high intellectual achievement, who want to reach further through undertaking a challenging university programme and develop their leadership skillset’, according to the college. Her three-year degree is health and performance science.

‘From there I’ll probably just play cricket for as long as I can whether in franchises or for Ireland. Ultimately, I want to get into physio, so I’ll take a conversion course and see where that takes me.’

She signed up with agent Niall O’Brien this year. ‘I was still in school so couldn’t commit but we’ve chatted about franchise things. I want to keep playing for Ireland and, if I do well, opportunities could arise which I’d really like to do.’

Before that is the small matter of five games against the world’s No 2 side over the next week, albeit one with just two survivors from the World Cup final two years ago in Tammy Beaumont and captain Kate Cross.

Joyce is excited about his young batter’s potential, and points at her work ethic: ‘If I put her down for a three-hour net she’d be there till the end, wanting to keep batting.

‘She wants to get hundreds, wants to wave the bat to the crowd at the end, getting the glory, which I love to see. She has a great hunger for batting.’