This cricket star just finished year 10. She’s also represented Australia in soccer

2 months ago 6

Caoimhe Bray’s career started with a call from her primary school principal to her mum, Kim.

The school’s under-10s cricket team only had one girl and needed a second. Kim said no at first, but eventually agreed.

“I guess you could say I was a bit good,” Caoimhe says. “As I kept making teams and going further, I really tried to pursue it.”

Caoimhe Bray, 16, balances teenage life with her cricket career.

“A bit good” is underselling it. The 16-year-old who just finished year 10 was the youngest person to play in a Women’s Big Bash League game – she was 15 years and 34 days. She took a hat trick in a match in November, and – in a feat that has earned her comparisons to Australian cricketer and former soccer player Ellyse Perry – has also played for the Junior Matildas.

With so much on her plate, the rising star has learnt to weigh up her priorities.

“I’m not someone who dedicates myself to school very much,” she says, “I do the essential stuff, I guess you could say. But when it comes to missing a day and catching up on work, that just wasn’t me.”

Caoimhe after hitting the winning runs for the Sydney Sixers against the Melbourne Renegades in October.

Bray has an agreement with her high school in Newcastle, where she does not attend during the WBBL season. She’s not sure if she will finish her HSC.

“I always said I wanted to be a professional athlete. But I guess you never really think about it until it really happens,” she said.

Despite her double life leaving little spare time in her schedule, Bray describes herself as fairly normal.

“I’m pretty boring,” she says, “I sort of chill at home, I do scroll a little bit, hang out with my mates every now and then.”

But constantly travelling for work isn’t always conducive to having a normal high school life.

Growing up in Denman, in the Upper Hunter Valley, Caoimhe had a taste of life on the road pretty early.

At one point, Caoimhe would spend the night in Newcastle ahead of morning soccer training, then be driven two hours to school in Aberdeen. She’d eat dinner at home in Denman before the drive back to Newcastle to sleep and do it all again.

The load was lightened two years ago when the family moved to Newcastle. Caoimhe jokes that she will have no problem clocking up the hours required for her P-plates.

The future is bright for Caoimhe, but she knows professional sport is not a guaranteed path or a lifelong career. She, like any 16-year-old, is figuring things out and not getting too far ahead of herself.

“I definitely know a lot will change ... Not everything’s going to stay the same,” she says.

“I don’t even know what I would want to do outside of cricket yet, but I think in the future I might have to [think about it].”