Talent development is at the forefront of research in sport, where female athletes remain underrepresented. With ongoing success and rapid participation growth, there is an opportunity to describe and assess talent development in cricket for female athletes. Research in other sports recommends a holistic approach to talent development, where the connection between individual, task and environmental factors is maintained. A series of semi-structured interviews was conducted to draw from the experiential knowledge of 16 elite female athletes and 7 coaches alongside empirical knowledge regarding player development (individual), training task design and talent development environments. Both players and coaches reported positive early learning experiences, linear career trajectories and early entrance into talent programs, suggesting some early specialisation. Exposure to boy’s/men’s cricket appeared to fast-track skill development in players, and player skill adaptability was considered crucial to expert performance by both cohorts. Training design typically involved functional games-based scenarios, or misaligned task deconstruction in contrast to contemporary skill development practices. Aims for discrete stages of the pathway were ambiguous for both cohorts, potentially limiting the value they provide, and transition between stages appeared fluid to coaches in contrast to the rigidity described by players. Finally, growing professionalism in cricket for female athletes through greater investment, contracts and player support has propagated a skill gap between pathway stages identified by both cohorts, which needs addressing. Closing this skill gap can be achieved by improving coaching practices and support at the amateur levels of cricket to develop the next generation of elite female cricketers.

人才发展处于体育研究的最前沿，女运动员的代表性仍然不足。随着持续不断的成功和快速的参与增长，有机会描述和评估板球女运动员的才能发展。其他体育领域的研究建议采用整体方法来发展人才，保持个人，任务和环境因素之间的联系。进行了一系列半结构化访谈，以从16名精英女运动员和7名教练的经验知识以及关于运动员发展（个人），训练任务设计和人才发展环境的经验知识中吸取经验。球员和教练都报告了积极的早期学习经验，线性的职业发展轨迹以及提早加入人才计划，建议一些早期的专业知识。暴露于男孩/男人的板球似乎是运动员快速发展技能的基础，而这两个队列均认为运动员技能的适应性对于专家的表现至关重要。培训设计通常涉及基于功能游戏的场景，或者与现代技能开发实践相反的错位任务解构。对于这两个队列来说，离散路径的目标是模棱两可的，可能会限制他们提供的价值，并且与球员描述的僵化相比，各个阶段之间的过渡对教练来说似乎是流畅的。最后，通过增加投资，合同和球员支持，提高了女运动员的板球专业水平，这扩大了两个队列所确定的途径阶段之间的技术差距，需要解决。