When Michaela Kirk was asked about Nottinghamshire’s aims in the Women’s County T20 season, the scale of her ambition could hardly have been clearer.

“To win every game,” was the simple response.

Fast forward a matter of weeks, and Sonia Odedra’s side are sitting pretty atop the East Midlands Group with two games to play, having won four games and seen two fall victim to the weather.

This weekend, their season concludes with a top-of-the-table double-header against Derbyshire, the only side with even the smallest chance of overhauling them, at Collingham CC.

After making four appearances in a severely-truncated T20 campaign last summer, Maddie Ward has made the wicketkeeping spot in the side her own this year – and the 16-year-old is quick to praise her teammates for helping her to raise her game.

“We’ve got a very strong squad this year, with quite a few first-teamers from Lightning (the East Midlands side in the ECB’s elite domestic structure) who have pushed things to the next level, and a few of us who are on the Lightning Academy pushing through,” she says.

“There can be a danger sometimes that you go into games a bit tentatively, worrying about the players you’re coming up against. But with the quality we have in our squad, we don’t have to think that way – we’ve got enough to challenge most teams.

“And with those players we’ve got who have been around for a while at this level – and at higher levels – it helps us younger ones to understand what’s required.

“We see their elite behaviour, and the way they carry themselves and take responsibility for their own performances.”

Ward’s ascent to the Lightning Academy is the latest step on a varied journey to date – taking in County Age Group, club cricket and games in senior men’s competitions.

It is a cricketing journey which she believes has stood her in good stead.

“The Academy has been great for me,” she says.

“There are three of us from Notts there (with Rhiannon Knowling-Davies and Ella Porter also part of the squad), and the step up in quality from county cricket is definitely preparing us to take our game to the next level.

"With the quality we have in our squad, we’ve got enough to challenge most teams."

Maddie Ward

“Playing senior men’s cricket has been a massive help to me as well.

“The game is so much quicker – so as a batter you need to be on your toes, and you have to get used to keeping wicket to quicker bowlers.

“It all makes it a bit easier when you move back into the women’s game.”

Ward’s meteoric rise and varied sporting diet may, from afar, have the hallmarks of a carefully-planned entry to elite sport.

However, it transpires this was far from the case.

“I used to go and watch my dad play on a Saturday, and just messed about trying to bowl really fast,” she recalls.

“I never really thought about playing until I asked my dad if I could join in with some Kwik Cricket sessions.

“Then my dad started to do age-group coaching at under-12s level, and there wasn’t really anyone who fancied being a wicketkeeper. I’d done a few bits in the garden, so he asked if I wanted to give it a go.

“I went to some trials with Notts to see how I’d get on with the hard ball, and it all just snowballed from there.”

This weekend’s final round of county fixtures brings the curtain down on a brief campaign for Nottinghamshire, but is far from the end of Ward’s season.

And with opportunities to impress arriving thick and fast in the coming months, a host of long-term goals have crystallised in her mind.

“This year, I’ve got a regional festival with Lightning coming up, then there’s the club season and some women’s games too, so it’s quite full on,” she says.

“For now, I want to keep doing well on the academy and hopefully push on to the first team, then you can look towards getting a professional contract.

“Then I’d like to get into The Hundred eventually and play for England too.

“I just want to keep moving up the ladder and see how far I can go.”