by The report of the Independent Commission for Equality in Cricket (ICEC) released in June 2023 was horrifying in its minutiae: the devil of institutional sexism in cricket, as they say, is in the detail. The report was damning about the county’s first class culture, describing “circumstances of violent and degrading behavior” towards the female staff. One witness reported that she was forced to lock herself in her office to avoid sexual harassment by the club’s male cricketers; another, who was called an “efficacious butcher” by a colleague after raising the issue of gender equality in a meeting.
Related: Women’s cricket to undergo a home shake-up with county-owned teams
So goes county cricket in the 21st century. So in light of that, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) – in a radical change to the domestic system announced last week – has announced the return of control of women’s cricket from the independent regions to back to the Gaeltacht. counties may look suspicious.
It makes more sense to put such thinking on its head and realize that this plan is as much about men’s cricket as it is about the women’s game. “This is basically a growth plan for cricket,” said Beth Barrett-Wild, the ECB’s director of the women’s professional game. “By making this move, we have the opportunity to really inspire cultural change through the game.”
Another clue is in the title of the bid document sent to the 18 premiership counties and the MCC, which are being invited to submit bids to host one of the eight professional women’s teams: “Evolving Together”. Winning bids will need to demonstrate a commitment to embedding equal opportunities at all levels of the club: what better way to end toxic masculinity?
The ECB seems to have learned something from the ICEC’s criticism of the lack of representation of women within cricket’s decision-making structures: the voices of female cricketers were at the fore and plans for the women’s professional game mark II were made in consultation with the players’ committee women of the Professional Cricket Association.
One member of that committee, Northern Diamonds player Katie Levick, says that this change feels very different from the previous change into the new regional structure in 2020: “I remember in 2019 our [Yorkshire] the season ended and we had no idea what was happening. Over the years, we’ve always wondered who is making these choices for us, so it’s been great to have a seat at the table and give us direct feedback at every step of the process.”
Details are obviously still to be worked out. Facilities will be a particularly formidable issue. The county grounds are already in full swing and the women’s game will – quite rightly – demand visibility on the sport’s biggest stages. One source close to the women’s regional game summed up the issue: “If there’s no money to build another facility, we’re going to have to do a lot of sharing.” Cricket men were not always very good at that.
Phoebe Graham of Lancashire Thunder, another member of the PCA women’s committee, agrees. “We don’t want to be training outside of the nine-to-five hours,” she says. “We don’t want the graveyard shift in a sports hall so that’s where the counties can fit in on us. That’s not where we are anymore. We have to prioritize.”
Graham cites Lancashire as an example of good practice in this regard: by already treating the North West Thunder as if they were Lancashire Women, they are missing the kind of belonging elsewhere. “Both the men and women train at Emirates Old Trafford as our main venue,” says Graham. “They were able to create joint commercial opportunities through Hilton and Sportsbreaks, promoting the club as one team.”
She adds: “If anything, Lancashire has probably forced the ECB’s hand by showing how well this model works.”
But cultural change is not easy. There must be a risk that some counties will pay lip service to the development of women’s cricket, win the right to host a side on the one hand and then use the ECB’s £1.3m annual investment to field their teams. to finance a man.
Karen Carney’s review last year found that the practice of ring-fencing money intended for women’s football to put back into the men’s game was widespread. The ECB says there will be robust processes in place to ensure this does not happen within cricket, but the details are still thin on the ground.
Above all, the new model must be successful. The ECB’s credibility has already been undermined by undertaking three major over-promotions of women’s cricket in eight years: failure is not an option this time.
