The game is looking strong after a traumatic year but there remains the challenge of truly reflecting society, and not just in terms of skin colourThe past year has thrown up challenges like no other in our lifetimes but as we look ahead hopefully to the return of some kind of normality in 2021, to the delayed launch of the Hundred, a hectic international schedule for England’s men including home and away series against India, and the start of a period of real excitement and potential in the women’s game, overall I’m optimistic. We’ve had a hard reset, but we might just come out of it better positioned to face the future.When we first went into lockdown, and all sport...
A year that began with a record T20 crowd ends with fears Covid may deepen inequalities in the women’s gameFive years ago in an Australian boardroom, Kevin Roberts, the current chief executive of Cricket Australia, scratched his chin and suggested it might be time to run men’s and women’s Twenty20 World Cups as separate entities. From that kernel came the idea that Australia should try to fill the Sydney Cricket Ground for the Women’s T20 World Cup final in 2020. A couple of years later, the aspiration grew again, the SCG became the MCG and the hashtag #FilltheMCG was born. It seemed a huge undertaking, some would say downright potty: Lord’s was sold out for the 2017 50-over Women’s World...
With a series clean sweep against West Indies, Heather Knight’s side were unstoppable – but team selection seems shortsightedEngland’s clean sweep against West Indies may have been handed to them via two no-balls from Shakera Selman at the end of a rain-reduced five-over slogathon, but they will be pleased with their showing in the series after easily winning the first four matches by margins of 47, 47, 20 and 44 runs.Any concerns that Heather Knight’s side might be rusty after a six-month absence from international cricket proved largely unfounded, thanks partly to the unexpected opportunity for England players to take part in the first two rounds of this summer’s regional competition, the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint Trophy, three weeks before their series...
It has been a vintage season for England’s men despite empty grounds – but a hard financial winter loomsThe way Douglas Adams told it in Life, the Universe and Everything, the world ends right after England win back the Ashes on a glorious late summer day at Lord’s. “The sun was shining on a happy crowd,” Adams wrote. “It shone on white hats and red faces. It shone on ice lollies and melted them. It shone on the tears of small children whose ice lollies had just melted and fallen off the stick. It shone on the trees, it flashed off the whirling cricket bats.” If the last few months have taught us anything much, it’s that there would be...
Opportunities for women to play the game were historically limited but the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint Trophy and a new book make the case that they will be at its heart in futureThe history of women’s cricket seems a relatively recent one. If you were asked to guess at the year the British media first covered a women’s county game, you might place it within the past decade. Perhaps, aware of the golden age that existed between the world wars – of names like Betty Snowball and Myrtle Maclagan – you would fix on the 1930s. It’s unlikely you’d go all the way back to 1811, when Hampshire and Surrey XIs played each other, watched on by the sportswriter, and observer of...