Taylah Knight, Nell Gibson and Josephine Pearce will head to Tamworth from the  September 25 to September 28 to take on teams from the Western, Riverina, North Coast, Newcastle, Central Coast, and ACT Southern zones.

And, the head coach is also a well-known local – Luke Knight.

This is Gibson’s sixth appearance at the Country Championships and she will be in the under 18s side.

While, Knight moves up into the under 18s side after three years with the 15s.

She has just arrived back from a five-day national training camp held at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

Knight was one of 19 of Australia’s top under 15s females who attended the high performance camp.

They were provided with high performance coaching and analysis, fitness testing, nutritional and physiological sessions from some of Australia’s top coaches, and talent scouts.

Knight says the experience was intense. 

Highlights included meeting former international players, like former Australian captain, Lisa Sthalekar.

Meanwhile it is the first time Pearce has played at this level, and been a part of the Cricket NSW Academy.

She has only been playing for two seasons.

The female Academy provided the girls with eight intensive coaching sessions, specialist coach visits, and a weekend of matches with North Coast and Newcastle in the lead up into the championships.

All of these girls will be vying for selection into both the 15s and 18s State Challenge sides – now known as Country Thunder and Country Sixers - to play in Sydney in the second week of the school holidays.

Luke Knight has also been appointed head coach of the under 15s Country Thunder side, and his assistant is former NSW Breakers coach Neil McDonald.