National Selection: Izzy Sharp's White Ferns call up

Burnside West Christchurch University Cricket Club | July 31, 2025

North West Women’s Cricket Club was incredibly proud late last summer with the announcement that Izzy Sharp would be called into the White Ferns squad for the T20 series against Sri Lanka, with two of the matches played at Hagley Oval.

20 year old Sharp was called into the One Day squad as Lauren Downs was ruled out with a back injury – those fixtures were played on Friday 7th of March and Sunday 9th of March in Nelson.

The club was grateful that NZ Cricket President Lesley Murdoch was able to join club chair Peter Hay at Burnside Park to present Izzy a plaque acknowledging her selection, the first member of our club to be called into a White Ferns squad. In fact, if you exclude players who have transferred into the Canterbury Magicians from other provinces it will have been about 10 years since a Canterbury player has been selected as a White Fern.

After the presentation Lesley was able to interview Izzy for her radio show ‘All Sport Breakfast Canterbury’ on News Talk ZB, and we are grateful to Lesley for sending us the interview. This was played on air on Saturday the 8th of March. (Link below).

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/christchurch/all-sport-breakfast-canterbury/audio/izzy-sharp-white-fern-on-sri-lanka-match-early-days-in-sport-and-the-decision-of-hockey-or-cricket/

Kerri and Graham Sharp are been terrific supporters of Izzy and travel to many of her matches, including the U19 World Cup in South Africa and Izzy explained how emotional they were on the phone when she shared the news of her selection.

Izzy joined NW Women’s Cricket as a year 9 attending Craighead Diocesan School for the 2018/2019 season travelling up from Pleasant Point in South Canterbury every week to play and every second week for practice, Izzy also played Canterbury age group representative cricket and was the captain of NZ U19 Women for the World Cup in January 2023. The North West product made her Canterbury Magicians debut on the 5th of February 2022 and is Cap #239.

- Shane Young.

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