Kent’s Lydia Greenway is hoping the inspiration of the Olympics will get more kids out playing cricket for years to come.

With a call for more children to participate in any sport on the back of a successful Olympics and Paralympics, Greenway believes kids should be given the chance to take part in sports they have never tried before:

“For me, it’s important all kid are given a chance to play some kind of sport and I feel we need to give them the chance to try something new.”

“I grew up in a cricketing family, so it was only natural that I was to get a go playing cricket, but that’s not the case for a lot of kids, so we need to give them opportunities to have a go at various sports to see if it’s something they’d like to do.”

The 27 year old Kent and England cricketer is currently working as a Chance to Shine Ambassador, going into schools throughout the UK and Greewnway believes it’s important kids get to see a female face:

“I think with Chance to Shine, that’s one of our aims, to get children, both boys and girls playing cricket and educating them through cricket and that’s something I think we do really well.”

“From a female point of view, it’s important we have female role models and coaches going into schools as it can get more girls involved in not just cricket, but sport in general.”

Women’s cricket has seen a huge uplift in media coverage in recent years with Greenway and her England team-mates now recognised after successes in Ashes series and in international tournaments.

Getting recognised isn’t a problem for Greenway who told KSN that she wants the women’s team to be ultimately given as much coverage as the men in the long term:

“I think as a team, the more coverage we are getting, it’s great for the sport and playing before the men’s games in the summer played a huge part in that.”

“I think it also helps that we’re both successful, so when we’re performing so well, people want to be part of that.”

Greenway and her England team-mates are currently in training for the 2013 World Cup in India and she believes the side are in good shape to defend their title:

“We won it in 2009, so there is a bit of pressure there but we are really excited. From the disappointment of the Twenty 20 World Cup, it’s nice that we’ve got something to get our teeth straight back into.”

“We’re all training really hard even though it’s nearly Christmas. We’ve put that to the back of our minds at the moment as we know come January 16th when we fly out, we’ve got a big job to do.”

As a Kent cricketer, Greenway has been part of the side that have been extremely successful over the past five years and news emerged this week that the women’s side could be staging games at the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury and she told KSN how she’d welcome the opportunity to play at the home of Kent:

“I think it’s great when you get to play in the bigger stadiums. We were meant to have a game there this summer, but unfortunately because of the rain, which was the case for most of the summer, we weren’t able to play there.”

“Hopefully we will have another fixture there next summer as it will be great for the girls, especially the younger ones who like me have grown up watching Kent play there, so it’ll be nice to play their ourselves.”