Women's cricket goes global

The history of women’s cricket is traced back to a quintessentially English occasion - a contest between the villages of Bramley and Hambledon near Guildford in Surrey. In their reporting of that match, the Reading Mercury commented that ‘The girls bowled, batted, ran and [took] catches as well as most men could’. It may come as a surprise to recent converts that this match took place in 1745, a full 103 years before the birth of W.G. Grace.

Progress in that time has not always been smooth. Although the women beat the men to staging a World Cup, England’s players were demeaningly forced to wear restrictive skirts until as recently as 1997. Meanwhile, the international game has been monopolised by the traditional power houses of England, Australia and New Zealand, who between them share all of the global silverware ever awarded. India have been competitive at times without ever winning a trophy. Those outside this clique have often looked short of class. That was true as recently as the previous World Cup in 2009, when none of the lesser teams got close to causing anything describable as an upset.

However, times are quickly changing. The ongoing World Cup in India has seen plenty of promising performances, and  even more compelling characters, emerge from the less established nations.

It is worth dwelling on Sri Lanka’s efforts. The team was not formed until 1997, and despite quickly overtaking Ireland and the Netherlands, had not beaten one of the top four in thirty attempts before this tournament. Last time round, in 2009, they finished dead last after being bowled out for 75 by South Africa in the 7^th place play-off. Now, just four years on, they have smashed their highest ever ODI total by thirty runs and pulled off the highest ever run chase in Women’s World Cups against two of the tournament favourites. The one game in which they were Dottined by West Indies aside, on the basis of the tournament so far there is little reason to believe that they couldn’t reach the final.

Dottined? That is a reference to Deandra Dottin, dubbed as ‘the female Chris Gayle’. Many male players would love to call on her hitting ability, which is second to none in the women’s game. But she is not even West Indies’ brightest star. That is Stafanie Taylor, who at 21 already has four ODI centuries, 70 wickets and has been nominated for the ICC’s Cricketer of the Year. Like Sri Lanka, West Indies were unheralded until recently. But they are now a genuine threat to any international outfit.

There is strong correlation between the introduction of de facto full-time contracts and the evident improvement in the teams benefiting from them. In Sri Lanka modest contracts, linked to the military, were launched in 2011 and players now receive a match fee. This allows the players to focus on their cricket virtually full-time without having to worry about bringing money in through other means. This has also been seen in the West Indies, whose key players are on annual retainers. Although Pakistan are yet to enjoy real success they now have more contracted players than any other nation, and themselves hit their highest ever World Cup total in the 7^th place play-off against India. It is only in recent years  that even the top teams started receiving remuneration: until 2005 Claire Taylor, one of England’s greatest batters of all time, had to combine her cricket with a job in I.T. Thus, it is an indicator of the pace of progress that even those boards that we could traditionally accuse of apathy towards the women’s game are making a sizeable investment.

But why has it taken so long? I’d argue that the absence of media coverage hindered women’s cricket for a long time. The 2009 event was the first World Cup to receive a global telecast (contrast that to tennis, where the Wimbledon ladies’ singles final has been televised for decades). The presence of cameras has allowed fans, and perhaps just as importantly administrators around the world to challenge their prejudices about the women’s game. This development has been paralleled by a substantial increase in coverage in newspapers, in magazines and online. As a result success and failure are increasingly visible, meaning that those responsible for the development of the game can no longer afford to be an embarrassment.

The ongoing World Cup has already been the most competitive women’s international cricket tournament of all time, and with the continuing improvements in funding, exposure and facilities the global spread of the game can be expected to continue. If one thing has already been proved it is that now, just as in 1745, women around the cricketing world can bowl, bat and take catches just as well as most men can.