TRANSGENDER cricketer Catherine McGregor’s remarkable pitch for the Women’s Big Bash League yesterday received a boost with an easy win in her debut first grade match.

McGregor said she was overwhelmed by support yesterday after News Corp Australia revealed her ambition to crack elite cricket at the age of 60.

The former lieutenant colonel Malcolm McGregor’s campaign has the full backing of Australian cricket chiefs including selector Greg Chappell, who say that dependent on form, she is a genuine contender for state representation.

Her Canberra coach Matt McGann said McGregor, a strong batter and left spin bowler who gave up the game for 30 years until recently, “could easily handle” WBBL level competition.

A nervous McGregor padded up but didn’t get to bat yesterday, with her Western UC side easily overpowering Eastlakes in the ACT 20 20 club competition, inclusion in which puts her on a selection pathway for the Big Bash.

“I fielded pretty well, the body is in good nick and I had a look at the standard of the grade competition and I feel pretty confident,” she said.

“I don’t want to get ahead of myself though, I think there are at least 50 better women players in Australia at the moment, so it would be a huge ask for me to make the WBBL at this stage.”

McGregor, a prominent cricket commentator who was previously the most senior Australian Defence Force transgender person after her public transition in 2012, said she had received congratulations and well wishes from around the world.

“I have been stunned at how supportive the messaging has been,” she said.

“I have been pleasantly surprised because there was always the fear that the haters out there would say I don’t deserve to play in the women’s competition because I was born male. It hasn’t happened though and I have had all sorts of messages.

“And the women on my team didn’t give a stuff, they have welcomed me with open arms and I can see a real future there.

“In fact there is already a trans woman on our team, so it’s a complete non-event in terms of controversy for them.”

McGregor represented Queensland as a schoolboy and played club cricket in England in her youth, before joining the army.

“I was a serious representative cricketer as a younger bloke,” McGregor said.

“I put the bat down and didn’t play again for 30 years and there was alcohol, drug abuse, gender dysphoria, the whole thing.

“I lost my way with it and didn’t do with it what I could have done.”

This reporter tweets @sarahblakemedia