How players are satisfying their appetites in WBBL Village

Dining in the WBBL Village is something of a surreal experience at first. 

Faced with an expansive buffet each breakfast, lunch and dinner – all housed behind a small white-picket fence – you are greeted by a hotel staff member in a mask and gloves, asking what you would like to eat. 

Gone are the pre-COVID days of serving yourself, this is an exercise in overcoming your own reluctance in having another person wait on you, and in learning to be overly communicative about the exact portion you require of any one ingredient or dish. 

However, there is no doubt the 250-plus people living in the Sydney Olympic Park hub are lapping up what is being provided. 

At the midway point of the season, more than 900kg of chicken and 1100kg of red meat had been consumed, while special one-night-only meals saw 55kg of smoked pulled pork, and 50kg of brisket devoured. 

With full-time baristas on site (and the coffee is free), the players and staff in the Village are burning their way through 45kg of coffee each week, while more than 40kg of yogurt had been turned into smoothies. 

At the snack station, 680 tubs of Chobani yogurt had been eaten midway through the season, while 4000 small bottles of juice had been drunk. 

For Cricket Australia high performance sports dietician Eliza Freney, working out how to feed hundreds of people while also allowing them a degree of choice and providing as normal a dining experience as possible was critical when planning for WBBL|06. 

The buffet was the obvious solution, but in COVID19 times, nothing is that simple. 

"Every state (health department) has their own take on it, but in most states you can’t have a buffet that’s self-serve," Freney explained to cricket.com.au. 

"So we needed something that was high volume and had the ability to be able to push it out in bulk, but we also needed a system where people weren’t serving themselves. 

"That’s how we ended up with the buffet with the white-picket fence and the attendant serving food in PPE – by all accounts it’s worked pretty well. 

"I think everyone misses serving their own food, but it is what it is."  

Image Id: 1C72AC6ADB9741C6BC9F235CED826BE1 Image Caption: There are plenty of delicious food options in the Sydney Olympic Park hub

Also crucial was weighing the right balance between the nutritional needs of elite athletes while also catering for mental wellbeing. 

Freney sent all players and staff a survey ahead of the tournament, asking them to nominate their favourite meals, sandwich fillings for the lunch station, and smoothie ingredients. 

‘Taco Tuesday’ is a weekly event, and between the staples that include chicken, salmon, stir-fry, steamed vegetables and gnocchi, there has been roast meat, lasagna, spaghetti, the occasional slow-roasted brisket or pulled pork, and for the odd dessert treat, churros have proved a Village favourite.

"My aim was to hit at least one person each day with their favourite meal, to keep that element of food that was about well-being and enjoyment," Freney said. 

One survey answer that stands out in Freney’s memory was the person who stated they would eat "anything but offal" (can confirm there has been no offal in the Village) but otherwise, the list of requests largely revolved around meat, vegetables and pasta, and chicken and salad wraps for lunch.

"That was a big part of the planning, striking a balance between food and mood and wellbeing," Freney continued.   

"There are foods that aren’t necessarily the best foods for performance, but they might bring people together, they may taste good and they may reflect people’s favourite foods… so that was one half of it. 

"The other half was planning what we need from a performance perspective, given it is predominantly an athlete hub, while keeping in mind that we’ve got families, support staff and people who don’t necessarily want to eat like an athlete."  

A lot has been said about looking after the mental well-being of those accommodated in bio-secure bubbles through this summer. 

The level of restrictions placed on various hubs will depend on the location but for the WBBL Village in Sydney, where players are only permitted to leave the precinct for exercise, training or matches, almost all food that is consumed is supplied by the hotel (UberEats and other such takeaway deliveries are also permitted). 

The role nutrition plays in mental wellbeing has been underestimated in the past, but is increasingly receiving the attention it deserves, Freney believes. 

"It’s something that’s unique in the sense that everyone needs to eat, but we all have such an individual fingerprint in terms of what we like to eat and what eating means to us," she said. 

"As an athlete you have the added layer of performance nutrition requirements as well.  

"But there is that link between mental health and the foods you crave or reach for, and also vice-versa, if there are foods you’re eating that consistently aren’t too good from nutrition perspective, that can influence your mental health.  

"In an environment like this, that is a pressure cooker for any kind of challenge, I think food is a massive part to get right because if you don’t have a balance – if it was all steamed broccoli and chicken – people would start to get pretty sad. I know I would."  

With people serving themselves out of the question, the attendants at the buffets have been given training in portion control, while players are of course trusted to put in place their own nutrition plans. 

"We’re lucky because we’ve got a great network of state dieticians, so this isn’t their first exposure to a dietician, they all have an individual understanding of what their nutrition requirements are," Freney said. 

"It’s just about navigating the choice they have … so the conversations we’ve been having are around matching what food is available with the objectives they’re trying to achieve from a physical and from a cricket performance perspective and making sure they feel empowered to make the right decisions.  

"To the players’ credit, they’ve adapted and got on with it."