This new girls-only club starts on Wednesday January 13 in Duns. Each weekly two-hour session will cost £2 and start at 6pm, with the club staying indoors until March 31.

Duns has been chosen as the site of the first Borders Focus Club because Berwickshire High School not only boasts the only girls-only cricket team in Scottish State Schools, but also has a new games hall and indoor net facility.

The girls' school cricket team was formed in 2007 by cricket enthusiast and PE teacher Colin Gracey. It has competed in a variety of girls-only and mixed secondary six-a-side events in the Borders, with limited success, but two of the players have shown sufficient promise to be recognised by Scotland U17s, as well as the annual Scottish Borders Sports Academy.

The focus club is ideally located in the 'East' Borders, where several members of the area's U16 and Scotland girls play their club cricket.

It will be looking for fixtures to neighbouring Northumberland, where the women's game is also blossoming at many clubs.

Cricket Scotland's Borders community development manager, Neil Cameron, has assembled a local coaching team to run the centres. They include two current Scottish internationalists in Kathryn White and Catherine Smaill and the Borders' two modern cricket apprentices. Whilst seeking to cater for all ages and abilities, the club will be geared to providing the Borders U16 girls team with new players. It will also act as an outlet for the young cricketers from the nearby Primary Schools.

Mr Cameron said: "There has probably never been a more exciting time for the women's game, There is increasing popularity of the game in schools and at club level, too. So, unless we offer opportunities such as this one, the interest will stagnate and, worse, die."