ASHLEIGH Malone, the daughter of Euroa's Christine and Peter Malone, has been selected to compete in the first ever Australian women's blind cricket team.
She got the exciting news earlier this month that she and 13 teammates will head to Birmingham, England in August to compete against the English and Indian women's blind cricket teams in the International Blind Sporting Association (IBSA) World Games.
Last week she met The Euroa Gazette for an interview at Mely & Me, where locals stopped by our table to say hello and congratulate her on making the team.
She explained she visits Euroa regularly, taking the train from Melbourne to visit her parents and grandma Shirley, making her a familiar face to many in town.
"I'm super excited," she said about her appointment to the team.
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"A little bit nervous – it's international cricket and there is an element of nerves there, but it's so lovely that a lot of the women in the squad are really good friends of mine.
"Not only being able to play high level sport but being able to do it with some of your best mates – I mean, how could you not be excited about that."
Ashleigh has been playing cricket for about 12 years and in 2014 played an international tour in India and Sri Lanka in a mixed gender team, making her the second ever woman to play blind cricket for Australia.
"I kind of thought I was done – I'm 32, I'm not that young," she said.
"And then I heard the words 'women's blind cricket' in November last year and I went 'where do I sign up?'"
She attended a development training camp in Adelaide later that month, then a selection camp in Brisbane in April shortly before the team was announced.
Players on her team have different levels of sight, ranging from completely blind like Ashleigh to partially sighted, but are all considered legally blind.
Ashleigh explained blind cricketers bowl underarm, not overarm, using a hard plastic ball that does not bounce like a regular cricket ball – this makes sweeping a bigger part of the game.
She said communication is even more important in blind cricket than in regular cricket.
"You're communicating with each other, you're communicating with your keeper and about what the batter is doing – whether they're taking a run, whether there's an opportunity to run out," she said.
A blind cricket ball also has bearings inside that make a rattling sound, allowing players to hear where it is.
In the lead–up to the tournament, Ashleigh and five other Victorian women will train by competing against the men's blind team or a sighted team, whose players will wear blackout goggles to simulate blindness.
Although Ashleigh's life is "kind of being overtaken by cricket at the moment", she has achieved a lot in her 32 years.
She lives alone in an apartment in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick and she owns and operates a small business consulting on issues affecting people with disabilities, especially women.
"I have a real passion for working with young people who are blind or have low vision on developing independence skills and empowering them to have whatever kind of life they choose to have," she said.
She is also a singer and is part of a small team that helps run the National Braille Music Camp, where every year blind students learn braille music in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.
Another of Ashleigh's hobbies is sailing, although she said she is "fairly beginner at that".
Her proud mother Christine said she is "absolutely thrilled" about her daughter's appointment to the national women's blind cricket team and plans to travel to Birmingham with her husband Peter to attend the tournament.
"She works very hard at everything she does," Christine said.
"She's a woman of the world and nothing fazes her."
