19,527. I’ll let that number sink in for a minute. That was the number of people who filled Edgbaston in Birmingham to witness the first IT20 of this year’s women’s Ashes series. England vs Australia, the absolute pinnacle of cricket. They weren’t disappointed, with a last over thriller which went the way of the Aussies. This wasn’t a one-off. 20,328 packed The Kia Oval in London a few days later to witness England achieve what seemed the almost impossible feat of beating Australia. At Lord’s for the third IT20, there was a record crowd to enjoy England’s victory. And it only gets better, as all three fixtures in the forthcoming ODI series at Bristol, Southampton and Taunton have sold out before a ball has been bowled. Making it the first women’s ODI series to sell out in England. The domestic Hundred tournament is also thriving, with packed crowds for double headed games at eight of the best and biggest grounds across the country.
Yet all these highs at the top of the game have sugar-coated the lows experienced throughout the game at a domestic and grass roots level. Late last year I was speaking to a regional player, who revealed to me that the test match credited stadium they were based at did not have sanitary bins in the dressing rooms. A young county player told me their playing opportunities had been limited to the point of them almost being cut due to reporting a member of staff within their setup for sexist and racist comments. Then there’s a county player who revealed that her team hadn’t been distributed the season’s new playing or training kit in full, despite being at the end of August. All of this on-top of the group of players who were kicked out of their scheduled net session as their male counterparts decided to do an impromptu session which had to “take priority”.
All of these individual incidents sit on top of the bigger fundamental issues; lack of opportunities for players to thrive due to poorly scheduled calendars, as well as low numbers of regional hubs. Also, an extreme lack of investment from the counties into their women’s teams, mixed with poor advertisement of regional and county games at the main and out-ground stadia, on top of the inaccessibility of the sport in general as cost of kit as well as underlying attitudes result in limited possibilities creating a huge barrier for girls across the country.
Even though extreme incidents are becoming less common as the game grows, they still lead me to ask the question, how in 2023 are we allowing such incidents to occur without anyone batting an eyelid? How are we still creating situations where players are being punished for speaking up for their rights, scenarios in which players feel uncomfortable speaking up because they don’t feel change to be possible due to who they are or who is at the top of the tree within their set up.
In this opinion piece I will explore the areas in which we can improve the game for all involved and the fundamental flaws within the current setup which continue to let so many down.
The 2020 Restructure
In 2019 the ECB decided change was needed if women’s cricket in this country were to grow and with the introduction of The Hundred around the corner the perfect opportunity presented itself. The Kia Super League was scraped, and the number of teams extended to eight from six, with the new women’s regional set up presenting itself. Eight regional “hubs” would represent different counties across the country. As an example, in the West-Midlands Hub ‘Central Sparks’ partnered with Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire. The first year saw the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy (50-Over tournament) and the second saw the introduction of The Charlotte Edwards Cup (T20 tournament).
Along with new tournaments, for the first-time domestic contracts were available, with five per team in the first year, six in the second and third, followed by a huge jump to ten ahead of the 2023 season. All positive changes in the short- and long-term plans to change women’s cricket for the better.
However, with all the positive changes within the set-up, negatives have followed and poor scheduling, mixed with limited opportunities are the main culprits. Inevitably these factors hinder progress.
The Flaws Within the Structure
This year the women’s calendar sees a record of 21 group-stage fixtures across the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy (RHFT) and Charlotte Edwards Cup (CEC), a change which should be full of positives, yet their scheduling continually lets them down. The RHFT kicked off in late April and continued until mid-May where the CEC was played in its entirety until early June. A month’s break has then see the RHFT games played in July and then again in September with another break in August to allow for The Hundred.
The nature in which the CEC matches were shoved into such a short timespan created several problems. First and foremost, many of the games are made inaccessible due to early weekday start times designed to allow for double headers with men’s matches. As well as this, many double headers include lengthy gaps in between the game. In the case of The Blaze vs Central Sparks earlier this season this gap was two and a half hours. Is a double header effective or sustainable if so few are able to get there to watch the women’s game?
This is on top of the lack of T20 games being played in the school summer holidays, meaning many can’t attend any fixtures. And with T20 being the most popular and most quickly growing format it is also the most accessible when it comes to its marketing value. If you wish to aim to bring in a big crowd, a T20 fixture is the most sensible to target. Its fast-paced nature makes it entertaining, but also sustainable for people wishing to bring kids and people who can’t necessarily take a whole day to watch a game of cricket.
The lack of T20 games post The Hundred is also problematic; from a viewership perspective it is disappointing the inability to build on the immediate hype of the tournament and capture some of the viewers with another short formatted tournament, but also from a playing perspective, the sudden switch between a 100 ball tournament to a 50-over tournament is quite a shock to the system and risks the health and overall welfare of the players involved.
It’s not only the fixture scheduling where players are let down. Lack of promotion and marketing from all involved throughout the season is a huge issue. The fresh nature of the setup means it has still failed to reach so many and the lack of a sustained effort to market the games results in an overwhelming number of fixtures having low crowd sizes. Yet, we have seen throughout the past few years that women’s sports are marketable, with record crowds and participation across Football, Rugby, Cricket, Netball and so much more but you must put the thought into advertising them. Find the correct target audience and make a name for yourselves. Whether that be flyers, advertising boards, adverts on snack packets, TV adverts, utilising social media, etc. This is something which the ECB, the regional hubs and the county’s which host them have constantly failed to do, with some regions failing to have something as simple as a shirt sponsor. Something which local clubs can achieve! Effective marketing has brought the crowds to England’s fixtures. The same is needed at a lower level.
On top of the scheduling and marketing issues, the lack of opportunity also continues to let so many down. Over thirty counties participated in the ECB Women’s T20 County Championship tournament and with only eight regional hubs and an average squad size of twenty, the chance to reach a professional standard of the game is extremely limiting.
County Credit
Playing cricket for your county is seen as an honour and has been for as long as anyone reading this article will remember, yet the lack of thought behind the women’s county set-up is continuing to completely fail its participants.
First and foremost, the ECB only schedules one official tournament and that is the Women’s T20 County Championship. Yet the scheduling of this stand-alone tournament still faces its own flaws. The entirety of the tournament in 2023 was scheduled to be played in April and May, with finals day across the country being on the 14th of May. For Worcestershire, that finals day semi-final would be the only game they played in the tournament, with all their other games being called off due to poor weather or ground conditions. They were not alone in this, as across the country the majority faced the same issues. You would think it was common sense that tournaments scheduled that early in the year were likely to face these problems? For many county players, that would be the only chance they had in 2023 to represent their counties. Meaning it is also their only chance to put themselves out there on a higher level than playing for their club and reach the eyes of the regional coaches across the country.
Some counties have taken it upon themselves to create 50-over tournaments to fill the huge gaps. In Worcestershire’s case they will have the opportunity to play in the West Midlands Regional Cup, which is headed by the Central Sparks in early July and August. But should they really have to do so? Shouldn’t the ECB take it upon themselves to schedule one tournament for all involved, helping to aid the overall growth of the game across all levels?
Another key issue within the county setup is the extreme lack of investment most counties put into their women’s team. The nature in which many of them shove their women’s team to one side and in some cases fail to supply the bare minimum. It cannot only be me who is baffled that there are counties who don’t believe it to be their responsibility to supply their women with full kit for the season? There are counties who have kicked players off their team because they have failed to pay to play. There is this consistent promise of change which many counties present and promise, yet the season flies by, year after year, without any change occurring.
The Inaccessibility of the Game
When you ask many about cricket and what they think of it, the majority will talk about it being an elitist sport which is inaccessible to them. That is the sad reality which is proven all too often through the behaviour and mannerisms of those within the game from grass roots all the way to the “Home of Cricket”, Lord’s.
The nature of the sport in general is inaccessible. The facilities needed to hold the games need extreme care and nurturing, from the wicket to the outfield, the space it takes to allow for a playing field. It is costly and therefore a sport which so many schools can fundamentally not offer. The large quantity of equipment amounts to a ridiculous cost. To purchase everything, you require to play hardball cricket from Gunn and Moore would cost a minimum of £415. Extortionate, isn’t it?
Aside from the cost factor, the attitudes surrounding women in sport act as a huge barrier. The opportunities for a woman to play club cricket are significantly lower than for their male counterparts. This is determined by the number of clubs offering women’s and girls’ cricket, the investment put in by those who do, as well as the underlying attitudes held by a lot of people within the clubs’ set ups and the outdated attitudes that sometimes come with.
Playing Second Fiddle
For me, the idea of “being second fiddle” is the biggest problem which faces the game and one which becomes apparent far too often.
The creation of The Hundred has been fundamental for the growth of the game, yet what we see has washed over what could have been if it weren’t for Covid interrupting the start of the tournament. If the tournament debuted in 2020 as initially scheduled, double headers would not have been. Instead, the women’s teams were to be shoved to the out-grounds, to play standalone fixtures. It was due to the nature of the Covid-19 pandemic that the ECB made the decision to move all the games to the same grounds to decrease the risk. This suggests equal pay. The reality is so far from this, with the highest women’s salary being £31,250, which is only £1,250 more than the LOWEST men’s salary.
The worst part? There is no need for it. In a tournament which is advertised as a “day at the cricket” you buy one ticket, for two games. A tournament which is completely televised, a tournament where the media is handled jointly between both sides. Does it really make sense for there to be that much of a pay gap? At the end of the day, The Hundred would not work without the work of the women’s players and their games… the reach it receives would not be possible. Shouldn’t the women receive a little more credit for that?
This underlying attitude within cricket, that women in sport are less, became apparent throughout the debate of 2023, the rumour of The Hundred meeting its end. Throughout these heated debates between fans across the country and further, it became apparent that nobody really cared what would happen to the women’s game if The Hundred was stopped. If it was then mentioned the attitude became, “well the women can keep playing The Hundred and the men can have a new tournament”. Something apparently wasn’t good enough for their men’s team, but it was perfectly fine for the women to continue with it.
Yet these underlying attitudes affect the game from the peak of international cricket to the beginning at grass roots level. These attitudes hamper our game, and its potential yet are barely called out or addressed. Most worryingly, these attitudes also exist amongst the leadership at counties, the ECB and further. The recent ICEC* report confirmed what so many already knew existed in our game, yet also acted as a platform to seeing how many were oblivious.
We see within the women’s regional set up how so often their access to facilities, coaching and medical staff is determined by what their male counterparts will require and what capacity is left over. How their scheduling and ordering of tournaments is determined by what is accessible after the men have all their games sorted.
What Has Already Been Done?
The ICEC Report – On the 26th of June, a landmark report was published which stated that English cricket suffers from “widespread and deep-rooted” racism, sexism, elitism, and class-based discrimination and urgently needs reform. The ground-breaking 317-page report drew on evidence submitted from more than 4,000 coaches, players, fans and administrators including England captains Ben Stokes and Heather Knight. The ECB has since responded to the report, pledging that it would respond to the forty-four recommendations made by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) within three months. The report strongly urges the sport to understand “that it’s not just banter or just a few bad apples” causing these problems.
The creation of The Hundred, despite its flaws, has been fundamental for the growth of the game and has progressed leaps and bounds in improving the attitudes of many watching it. Giving the women’s players the equal opportunity to play at some of the biggest grounds in the country, in front of good-sized crowds and televised, has been ground-breaking from an on and off the pitch perspective. Individually, it gives the players a huge platform to display their skillset and craft, enabling them to go after deals around the world as player and for sponsorship opportunities. On a broader level, it has given women’s sport a whole new platform as well as a new perspective, revealing the possibilities and how far we can grow.
On the 31st of May, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced a huge partnership with Metro Bank. They would become the ECB’s first-ever Champion of Women’s and Girls’ Cricket, creating a fund purely for the women’s and girls’ set-up, with the aim to build on the community and diversity within our game as well as making cricket a more inclusive sport for all. This partnership would include sponsorship of “The Metro Bank Women’s Ashes”.
The Dynamos Cricket (8–11 year-olds) and All Stars (5-8 year-olds) set ups create an accessible opportunity for children across the country to get into cricket in a fun and entertaining way. Both cost £40 for a recommended eight hours of coaching. The aim is to introduce children to the game in a fully inclusive environment.
Making Improvements: My Suggestions
- Broadcasting opportunities
As the old saying goes, “you have to see it to be it”. The overall portrayal of women in sport throughout the media improved leaps and bounds over the past few years, especially in cricket. With all senior England women’s internationals and women’s Hundred games broadcast on TV. However, when it comes to women’s regional cricket, the bar is extremely low, with no games broadcast yet this year. In order to get spectators in the stands, we almost have to prove why they should take time out of their schedules to come to watch a women’s game and by broadcasting games from a regional level we ensure more eyes on the game virtually, which inevitably will amount to more bums on seats.
As well as an increase in the broadcasting of regional cricket, the way women’s internationals and The Hundred are broadcast should be looked at. In order to make the sport more accessible, free-to-air games are crucial. The Hundred does it reasonably well, with a handful of games broadcast on free-to-air TV, but when it comes to internationals this is far from the case. By making games free to watch, we increase the background of those watching them and therefore the interest in the game as a whole will also increase.
- Scheduling
The scheduling of the women’s cricket calendar is an easy one to fix, but one which does need addressing. From my point of view, the T20 format is the most accessible from a cost, time and age group standpoint, as well as being the most popular format at this moment in time. Therefore, it would make sense to increase the number of T20s played by the regional teams. Not only that, but the order in which the tournaments are played and using the school summer holidays as well as the post-Hundred hype could be huge in increasing the overall popularity of women’s regional cricket.
The timings of the games are also crucial in the growth of the sport. Having a T20 game on at 2pm on a working day (as they are so often scheduled) ensures nothing but an underwhelming crowd. Utilising prime spots for women’s games could really help boost attendances.
- Use of women’s counties
In order for cricket to thrive and reach its full potential, proper use of the women’s county set up is crucial. First and foremost, the scheduling of the games must improve, as having a standalone tournament in April and early May is not sustainable for the growth of the game. On top of this, the ECB should invest in a 50-over tournament to run alongside the current women’s T20 County Championship, helping to increase playing opportunities for those involved.
Better regulation of the counties should also occur, to improve the conditions and resources of the women’s teams. The ECB should encourage the counties to further invest in their women’s sides and should insure they are, at a minimum, supplied with the necessary equipment and facilities for a functioning team. Training sessions, kit and a place to play seem a reasonable place to start, given some of the counties fail to stretch to these.
Double headers with the men’s sides could also be encouraged, to further grow the game’s platform and opportunities for the players on and off the pitch.
- Location of games
The location of games throughout the women’s game is a continued issue, with many games being played out grounds which are near impossible to reach using public transport and have limited parking on site. The ECB and individual counties could look to be smarter when scheduling games and explore the possibility of shuttle services to games at inaccessible venues.
On an international level, the majority of games are being played in the south and in the midlands. If we want the game to grow, we should look to have more widespread venues for England internationals, to make the games more accessible to a greater number of people.
- Marketing
In order to grow women’s regional cricket, proper use of marketing is crucial. Effective marketing ensures engagement with viewers, an increase in spectators and media coverage and raising a spotlight to the tournaments and teams as a whole.
If we increase the spectators and media coverage, the financial benefit of the set-up will also grow, enabling further opportunities to develop the set-up. All these factors amount to greater growth of the game as a whole and have a hugely positive impact on the sport in general.
Currently, the ECB, regions and venues which host the regional teams are failing to make cricket fans aware. If fans don’t know a game is happening or in some cases don’t know their county hosts a women’s team, how is it possible to get appropriate spectators in the stands and build a proper fan base?
- Independent regulator
After the release of the ICEC report revealing that cricket in England is suffering widespread sexism, racism, classism and elitism, the introduction of an independent regulator could ensure we sustain a safe and welcoming environment for all involved.
By giving players a safe space to discuss any discrimination they may be facing within their team environment, whether that be at a grass roots, international or regional level, we allow greater transparency about the issues taking a hold of our game and we can further explore what needs to be done in order to create a fully inclusive and accessible sport. We also ensure through doing this that we are seeing the full picture of what is happening and ensure players aren’t punished or let down by the systems which are supposed to protect them.
- Representation on boards
To achieve a fully inclusive game, representation at all levels of the boards is crucial. Having individuals who can first-hand understand the experiences of these athletes insures the crucial and necessary change is more likely to occur.
More diverse and inclusive boards bring multiple perspectives, resulting in much better decision making. Higher authorities which are diverse and inclusive have impowering effects on the organisation they are in, and further and will help guarantee the protection of all within our game.
- Increase of regional hubs
One of the biggest barriers facing women’s cricket at the moment is the lack of playing opportunities. With the county set-up currently failing its players, a lot of the pressure falls onto the regional set up; with only eight hubs and over 30 counties competing in the county championship, the opportunities to play at a professional standard are limited.
My suggestion is the introduction of two new regional hubs. As an example, you could have one targeting Wales.
More teams = more fixtures.
More fixtures = more opportunities for players.
More opportunities for players = better standard of play.
Better standard of play = increased selection opportunities for England.
Stronger England team = greater impact on the country.
Greater impact on the country = greater popularity in the game as a whole.
Closing Comments
It is important for me to make something clear. I do not write this article from a perspective of being ungrateful for how far we have come. I do not write this article from a stance of being ungrateful for what we have already been given. I write this article from a place of being excited where we can go; as a sport cricket has so much potential. To grow the image of women in sports, to create more opportunities for our players whilst ensuring the opportunities we already have are not being wasted due to underlying issues within our game.
We have this huge opportunity to become so much more inclusive, to truly make cricket a sport for everyone. But to do this, we have to open our eyes to the fact that things are going wrong. We can and must do things better. There are players who are suffering in silence, afraid to speak out. There are players who will never get their chance to thrive because they just do not have the resources to do so. There are teams who are not being given the resources they need to truly compete because they are women.
We must work together to speak openly and honestly about what girls and women at all levels of the game truly experience. Without this, cricket as a sport will never reach its full potential.
Rosa Simkin – August 2023
*ICEC = Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket
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