Lauren Ebsary awarded ACA's highest honour

The Australian Cricket Association (ACA) has honoured Lauren Ebsary with its highest honour, the Kerry Packer Award.

The Kerry Packer Award provides honorary life membership to the ACA, and is presented to those deemed to have served the ACA in an outstanding capacity and is judged by the ACA Board of Directors and endorsed by a relative of the late Kerry Packer.

Lauren works as zone manager for the South Australian Cricket Association alongside her role as an ACA ambassador and implementing the Association’s game development program in her home state. Lauren also served as a former member of the ACA’s female advisory group towards the backend of her playing career 2015-16.

Lauren represented Australia on 34 occasions from 2009-2012 across 19 One-Day Internationals, 14 T20 Internationals and one Test match, compiling over 500 runs. She captained the SA Scorpions to their WNCL maiden title in 2015-16 highlights an 80-match domestic one-day career that amassed over 1,200 runs and claimed 46 wickets .Before retiring at the end of the 2018-19 Big Bash season, Lauren featured in 60 WBBL matches for the Adelaide Strikers and the Perth Scorchers, striking 683 runs.

Lauren’s work for the female advisory group began prior to female cricketers entering the memorandum of understanding for the first time and spans across many new policy additions driven by the ACA for the women’s game which players did not have access to previously.

“The pregnancy policy coming in was a massive gamechanger,” says Lauren.

“Several of the girls who were mums too were obviously be able to have a bit more security with a policy in place like that.”

“Women now have the ability to play cricket, have a child and then come back to cricket. It has been incredible to see the evolution of that come in.”

Families and partners being allowed on tour was not previously a support mechanism for female players, nor was injury insurance introduced until following Lauren’s time with the Australian team from 2010-2012.

“The reality was you could get picked for an Australian squad, get injured, having let go of your other employment to go on the tour but yet there was no compensation available to you.”

“Things like that, I reflect back on and it breaks your heart to think there were players who weren’t able to get the rewards for years’ worth of training for it to come unravelled at that last little hurdle.”

Fast forward to the present day, though, and Lauren says a trip to the MCG on that momentous World Cup Final day last March really hit home just how far the women’s game had come in a short space of time.

“To see the girls be able to perform on an absolute stage in front of that many was just incredible,” says Lauren.

“So, I think living it and pulling up stumps a few years earlier, to then see that was, an incredible sight to know where the women’s game has gone.”