When women go searching for a cricket bat, they often find they have fewer options than their male counterparts, but a Gippsland bat maker hopes to change that.
Clare Johnston has played cricket since she was a teenager, and about seven years ago learnt the trade of bat-making from former Australian cricketer Ian Callen.
She said it brought two things together that she loved.
"I used to play cricket. I love playing cricket and I like making things, and this is an old craft," Ms Johnston said.
"I really love it. I find it really, really peaceful and enjoyable to get out there in the shed and make cricket bats."
Lack of choice for women
Working from a shed on her property at Berrys Creek in South Gippsland, Ms Johnston has a particular interest in making bats for women, hoping to fill what she sees as a gap in the industry and in knowledge.
"When you walk into a cricket shop, it's all about men's cricket, and often there may be just a couple of bats that are really for women's cricket," she said.
"You might have a choice of one or two bats whereas men might have 10, 15 bats.
"Often with a bat, you've got to feel it, and you pick it up and so if you've got 10 bats, you can try out 10 bats, whereas if you've got two, that's kind of all there is.
"So women end up with a bat that is designed for teenage boys, so it's not really the best. We can do better than that, in this day and age."
Ms Johnston said more time needed to be devoted to designing bats with women and girls in mind.
"We could actually make the effort and say to women, 'Yes, you're worthy of a good bat'. I think that's really important," she said.
"I think it would encourage more girls to play if they could walk into a sports store and go, 'There's women's gear, that looks like me, I can do that'.
"Physiologically we're a little bit different and I'd like to work with women to really understand how we can improve bats and make bats that actually work for them.
"It might not be that much different to men's bats but I'm just taking the effort to find that out."
Tailored bats mean happy customers
Kristen Webber from Yinnar said she loved her tailor-made de Lacy bat.
"I went and met with Clare and I said to her, 'I want it to be really heavy and quite a thick bat' and I'm average height so I said, 'Can it be a little bit taller?', and she just made it perfectly," she said.
"She just is so thorough. She asked loads of questions, asked me to send some photos of the shape that I wanted my bat and the thickness and really tailored it to everything that I would want."
Ms Webber said the bats available commercially did not give her the same level of confidence in playing a shot.
"They tend to be on the lighter side and that wasn't what I wanted, that didn't appeal to me," she said.
"I couldn't really find anything that was designed for a female that was heavy, and as tall as the bat that I have had Clare make for me, and so to find Clare was a blessing."
Ms Johnston said she had heard good things about how the bats performed.
"I've made them for [the women] so it feels like what they'd hope it would feel like," she said.
"They love the idea that it's a female making a bat for a woman."
Growth in women's game
At an international level, the women's game is going from strength to strength — the Australian women took out the Commonwealth Games and World Cup titles this year.
Ms Johnston has recently returned to playing cricket for Mirboo North, in a women's competition.
"It's just been awesome and the women have just been amazing, so welcoming," she said.
Ms Webber plays in the competition too, for Yinnar, and was instrumental in establishing it last season.
The number of teams has increased from six to eight in just a year.
"Last year we had about 65 women playing and this year there's up to 100, so I think there's only going to be more opportunities for women," she said.
