Matt Maher: Scoring runs for fun is the key for rising star Davina Perrin

“It was the first game of the season,” she smiles. “I remember stepping on to the pitch thinking: ‘OK, I am going to score my first 100 today’.

“That is what I did. It was just one of those feelings. I ended up scoring five more centuries that year and it was the point I thought: ‘I’ll tell you what, I’m not bad at this!’.”

Not bad is maybe something of an understatement. Now aged 16, Perrin has firmly established herself as one of the brightest young talents in the sport and the milestones keep coming.

Having made her professional debut last year, two days after her 15th birthday, this year she became the youngest player ever called up to The Hundred after being signed by Birmingham Phoenix.

Earlier this month, she became the youngest female player to earn a professional contract having signed up with Central Sparks, while in January she will jet off to South Africa to play for England squad at the under-19s T20 World Cup. No prizes for guessing she is the youngest member of the squad.

“There was always talk of this superstar from Staffordshire who was bossing it and would score 100s for fun,” says Laura MacLeod, director of West Midlands Women’s Cricket, the body which oversees the Sparks and development of the game in the region.

“Davina is someone who, when we started our journey in 2020, we expected to be with us. She definitely has a bright future.”

Exciting times these might be but there seems little danger in Perrin, the second youngest of six children who still lives with her parents in Wednesfield, getting carried away. Sitting down in a corner of Edgbaston’s Indoor School, she speaks about her experiences and ambitions with a maturity way beyond her years.

“I guess I have been forced to grow up faster,” she says. “I entered a senior environment with a lot of grown women who were buying their own houses, or driving.

“I have also always played with people who are older than me, so I’ve had to adjust. Whether that makes me more mature, I am not sure. It is just something I have had to do.”

Perrin’s sporting talents are not confined to cricket. At the age of 10 she won the national 100 metre schools title and for a while it looked as though her future might lie in athletics.

Yet it is cricket she has always enjoyed most. She first picked up a bat aged six, desperate to copy older sister Danica. At 13, she became the youngest player and the first female to ever turn out for Fordhouses first XI.

“I would love to be able to say it wasn’t daunting but there were a fair amount of nerves,” says Perrin.

“I knew nobody wants to get out to a girl. Nobody wants to get hit around by a girl. I knew they were going to come at me as hard as they could and balls would be flying at my head when I went out to bat.

“I was nervous but I felt I just had to embrace that. I had to embrace the nerves and give it my best shot.”

Perrin played almost exclusively alongside and against boys and then men before joining the West Midlands academy.

“Sometimes I would step out onto the pitch and you would hear people say: ‘Oh, it’s a girl’,” she recalls. “But it only egged me on and gave me that competitive drive to prove the boys wrong and compete with physically stronger people. I never let it get to me.”

Support has come from her family, including proud dad Dave, along with Chris Guest and the coaching team at Fordhouses.

Perrin is also a member of the African-Carribean Engagement Programme (ACE), set up in 2020 to address the decline in black British professional players.

It is chaired by Ebony Rainford-Brent, the first black woman to play for England, who in recent years has become a mentor to Perrin along with fellow ACE director Chevy Green and Recordo Gordon, the former Warwickshire seamer and a coach on the scheme.

“They have given me advice and have been a huge help since I started the programme,” says Perrin.

“ACE has created an environment for black youngsters to come together. It gives you a sense of belonging.

“Quite often I will enter a cricketing environment and feel as though there is no-one else who relates to me.

“ACE gives me that and people I can share my story with. I know they get me. It has filled in a gap which I didn’t know was missing before.

“It has been massive for me, in terms of building my confidence and everything really.”

Perrin has the air of someone loving every minute of her work. When not training at Edgbaston, the rest of her week studying for a BTEC in sport coaching and development, having sat her GCSEs at Tettenhall College a year early. Weekends are now occupied by training camps in preparation for the World Cup.

“I am encouraged to have a social life but at the moment it is very heavily cricket, cricket, cricket,” says Perrin, when asked how she fits her career around being a normal 16-year-old.

“What do I love about the sport? At the moment it is simply because I enjoy it. Every time I pick up a bat I want to go and whack some balls. It is purely enjoyment.

“That is the only reason I play the game and the only reason I want to continue.”

“We do need to remember how old she is,” adds MacLeod. “We need to give her the freedom and ability to go and do some things a typical 16-year-old would do. If you restrict that too much, it will have an impact at some point.”

There is a bigger picture to Perrin’s latest achievement. Her professional contract is one of 40 across the country, with the number of full-time domestic players doubling from next season.

The Hundred, which Perrin claims opened her eyes to the new opportunities available, has boosted the popularity and profile of the women’s game. Ticket sales for next summer's women's Ashes Test at Edgbaston are already beyond record levels.

MacLeod, who played 89 times for England at a time when it was very much amateur, believes something special is afoot.

“I feel we are on the cusp of something which is going to be magnificent, not just for cricket but for women’s sport,” she says.

“You look at what is going on in football and rugby, both union and league. The journey we are on is superb and it is gathering pace. It has taken a while to get to this point but the acceleration is going to be great.”

Perrin hopes to help drive it.

“I just want to maximise my potential, whether that be playing for England, or whatever,” she says.

“I want to play at the highest level possible, to the best of my ability and in doing so inspire other young girls and female cricketers.”