A 21-year-old cricketer was offered a trial by Lancashire on her first cricket session.

She will now be playing in Tier 1 during the 2026 season with Yorkshire women.

The White Roses played Tier 2 cricket during the 2025 season; however, they are one of nine teams becoming a Tier 1 side for the upcoming 2026 season.

Yorkshire have also increased their funding for 2026, bringing it to £1.5m per year.

Yorkshire all-rounder, Olivia Thomas said: “We performed well in Tier 2 last season, we won the one-day cup (Metro Bank One Day Cup Women League 2) and we were unbeaten up until the final of the T20 cup.

“We beat Tier 1 sides, so I think we have proven to ourselves that we are good enough.”

This comes as part of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) restructuring of the women’s professional division.

Tier 1 sides are professional sides; Tier 2 sides act as a bridge between the amateur counties and professional sides, and tier 3 is for mostly amateur counties.

Thomas was crucial in Yorkshire’s Metro Bank cup victory as she took 3 wickets in 4 overs, while only conceding 14 runs in the final.

It was an impressive campaign as the Yorkshire team have not long been together, being put together as a team at the beginning of the season.

The successful campaign saw her rewarded with a maiden rookie contract with Yorkshire at the end of the 2025 season.

The all-rounders’ first taste of the sport came in year six.

Thomas said: “My mum worked on reception so I would have to wait for her which meant being signed up to loads of after school stuff, one of those was cricket.”

Lancashire cricket club were running the after-school session and following it asked Thomas to come down for a trial.

“I had never played cricket before, but after this six week after school club I had somehow ended up at Lancs (Lancashire) trials,” Thomas said.

From that her love for the sport exploded joining her local cricket team, Heywood CC.

There were no girls cricket teams for Thomas so she would have no option but to play mixed cricket from 10 years old.

Thomas said: “I have been really lucky, and it is not the case for everyone, that Heywood were amazing, they never treated me like ‘the girl on the team’ and provided opportunities for me throughout.

“It was other teams which I found quite funny as boys would always hate it when I got them out or would hit them for four, even when I played for the adult team’s people would make the occasional comment.”

Thomas would often play way above her age range, sometimes playing adult cricket aged 12/13, which Thomas believed massively benefitted her development.

“Batters tended to be a bit quicker to adapt and if you bowl a bad ball, it’s going to get put away. It was the same with the bowling, you’re facing quicker bowling than I would face playing women’s cricket,” Thomas said.

All the experience she would gain through playing against older competition would put her in good stead as she made her Lancashire first team debut at just 15.

Thomas has severe asthma which would flare up during her time at Lancashire alongside multiple injuries, seeing her eventually let go by the Red Roses in 2024.

Knowing that playing professional cricket was now her dream, she would continue to pursue it, joining Yorkshire women in 2025.

With the major changes coming into women’s cricket structurally and financially, it is possible that women’s cricket can follow in the footsteps of women’s football.

The sport has garnered a major increase in popularity over the past few years, and it will only continue to grow.

Thomas said: “The Hundred has played a big role in growing the sport plus we will have a home T20 world cup this year which will be played in grounds like Headingley and Old Trafford which is amazing.”

The investment within the sport has increased too, with at least nine counties now having at least 15 professional contracts.

Thomas said: “2014 was the first time England women got professional contracts, so in just over 10 years, to go from having no professional cricketers to be cracking on for 200, if not more, shows the direction the sport is going in.”

This is essential for allowing the sport to grow. With more professional contracts, it will allow the players to focus solely on their cricket.

“If you’re in training from nine till three, what jobs really work around that? Many of the players would have previously been juggling work and training which doesn’t allow them to be the best versions of themselves,” Thomas said.

Women’s cricket is not just growing in the professional world but also at the junior and grassroot level.

Participation is increasing year on year, with the ECB announcing that nearly 600 new girls’ teams and 550 new women’s teams were created in 2025 across England and Wales.

This is on top of the 1,000 new women’s and girls’ teams that were created in 2024.

Thomas said: “I know kids now, who aren’t even that much younger than me, who never had to play mixed cricket, they went straight through girl’s cricket.

“You’ll find now that most clubs are trying to do something, which from even five years ago is a massive jump.”

The growth of any sport is partly due to its influence on the younger generation, and thus  the rising popularity of youth cricket can only be a positive for the women’s game.