“It helped me massively and improved my game just in one month, so I’m hoping being in a full professional environment in the winter can benefit me on and off the pitch,” Smale told BBC Sport Wales.
“It has happened very quickly for me, I had a ridiculous summer when I look back on it, I never thought I’d achieve all that in my first year, but I’m thankful I was given the opportunity by Dan (Helesfay, coach) at Storm and by JB (Jonathan Batty) for the Hundred.
“People put a lot of faith in me and it’s crazy I’ve had such a blast of a season, but I can’t get too far ahead of myself and there are going to be times when it’s not that amazing.
“It probably will be one of the best summers I’ll ever experience. I tried to channel out the crowds and focus on my bowling, I liked the atmosphere, though, and the growth in the crowds with the women’s Hundred was amazing to see.”
Smale comes from a cricket-loving family, with grandfather Malcolm Price having coached and been on Glamorgan’s committee, while mother Ann-Marie is a current member of the county’s board.
“I was about six when I started playing cricket down at Newport, my first memory was a bowl-out (competition) where you had to hit the stumps to get points and I’ve still got the medal,” she said.
“My first game was when I was seven or eight; we were having a barbecue on my dad’s birthday, my parents forgot about it, we had to rush to Monkswood and I got a hat-trick if I remember rightly.
“I was bowling left-arm seam, I thought I was rapid but I wasn’t and Grandpa told me to start bowling spin. I’ve just gone up (the age-groups) with Wales but I’ve probably played more boys’ cricket than girls’ cricket at club level and the challenges with that benefit you so much as a player.
“Down at Newport the boys realised I was good enough to be in it, and at school I play for the boys’ first team (at Monmouth) and they always back me 100%.”
Smale, who turns 18 in December, will now have to combine her cricket with finishing two A-levels at Monmouth Girls School, but hopes to concentrate fully on the sport from next summer onwards with no current plans for university.
Meanwhile, she has that England Under-19 trip to South Africa in the New Year lined up, alongside fellow Wales player and namesake Seren Smale – a batter and wicket-keeper from Wrexham who is no relation despite the coincidence of their unusual surname.
The England squad is already meeting for training sessions every weekend.