By Lachlan Mitchell
Local Lachlan MacRae has been selected to represent Australia in the Intellectual Disability cricket team to play England later in the year.
MacRae is a regular feature of the Endeavour Hills Cricket Club and has represented Australia and Victoria in the past.
MacRae was a regular feature of the Eagles Turf 1 side in the 2019/20 season, as well as being a consistent part of the Victoria Intellectual Disability squad in the National Cricket Inclusion Championships.
The tour will consist of five twenty-20s and three ODI matches in June against old rival, England.
The campaign will be part of the International Cricket Inclusion Series, paired with the blind and deaf teams.
“It’s a great opportunity for me, I feel honoured to represent Australia, this is my fourth time,” MacRae said.
“I always love putting on the green and gold and doing my best for my country and my team.
“It’s really great to see people with disability playing the game, even when I started in 2015, to now, it’s come along way and we have been funded for three years by the Commonwealth Bank.
“It’s a really great opportunity for us who are blind and have intellectual disability and deaf to get an opportunity to play the sport and represent Australia.”
Intellectual disability cricket has the same rules and regulations as able-bodied cricket, while blind cricket has the use of a ball with a bell in it.
“We are currently in training and I’ll go up to Brisbane to meet the squad and do a group-training, that’s when we will start the matches,” MacRae said.
MacRae was a part of the 2019 International Inclusive Series, where he represented Australia and averaged 22 with the bat.
In the eight games in the 2019 tournament MacRae stared with the ball taking four wickets in 14 overs throughout the series.
Cricket is the first non-Paralympic Australian sport to be a fully funded national disability squad.
