In April 2023, Nicola Carey turned down a lucrative contract renewal offer from Cricket Australia (CA), citing her lack of consistent playing time with the ‘Green and Gold’ as the reason behind her decision.
In the 33 matches Australia has played since the start of 2022—between the home Ashes and the home ODIs against Pakistan in January—the all-rounder has only appeared in nine of them. Earlier this year, Carey was left out of the T20 World Cup in South Africa. The 30-year-old made the decision to decline the CA contract in favor of signing a deal with Cricket Tasmania, where he played the whole preseason at home in Hobart. Given that she is receiving regular playing time in domestic cricket, Nicola Carey stated she had no regrets about choosing not to sign the CA contract.
“I think that was incredibly positive because I had some pretty fantastic conversations with Shawn Flegler, the national selector. In the end, I’m quite pleased that I stayed at home to receive that intensive training and play some reliable cricket; I have no regrets about it. I gave it a lot of thought, and Flegs was excellent. I truly appreciated that he gave me some time to consider it,” Carey said to cricket.com.au.
“It’s never an easy decision to make; the Australian squad is doing fantastically right now, and I had a great few years there.” It wasn’t an easy choice, but I’m glad I made it since it’s a pretty hard squad to get into and a really fantastic set of females as well. Spending most of the time at home working on a few different things—not big things, but tiny things with the bat and a few different things with the ball—was really pleasant, she said.
Nicola Carey is now a player with the Hobart Hurricanes in the Women’s Big Bash League. Currently ranked fifth in the points system, they are making a desperate attempt to qualify for the WBBL finals. After missing a few games earlier in the competition owing to a quad injury, Nicola Carey has amassed 165 runs in eight innings at a strike rate of 109 and claimed 10 wickets at an average of 22.
It has occasionally been somewhat up and down, but that’s T20 for you, isn’t it? In one game, you could receive 1000 hits, while in another, you might not receive many hits. As a result, it has fluctuated somewhat, which makes logical and also reflective of the team’s performances. As a team, there are many things we can be proud of, but there are also many things we need to improve,” Carey stated.
Nicola Carey hasn’t given her Australia comeback much thought.
Nicola Carey pointed out that because the Australians are so successful, it is really hard to get traction there. After the WBBL concludes, she will concentrate on the Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL). Tasmania, Nicola Carey team, will try to win the WNCL championship three times in a row.
To be honest, I haven’t really given playing for Australia again any thought. My main consideration when I made the choice was to play more cricket. And rightly, given their incredible success—which has been fantastic for Australian cricket—it’s really difficult to break into that squad and get a match,” Carey said.
“But I’m content with where that’s at because I’m playing games consistently, which has been very wonderful. I love going back and playing with the Tigers girls; we’ve got a terrific group of girls, and I’m really looking forward to playing a whole season there,” Carey said. “I get to play every WNCL game, which I really enjoy.”
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