It is when you aren’t looking for anything particular that you find the extraordinary. Once in a state of boredom, I switched on the T.V. to see Usain Bolt break the world record. It wasn’t planned, I didn’t know he was running, or that it would be televised. It’s just one of those where were you? Moments.
It is kind of the way that I started to follow women’s cricket. I was the day of the World Cup final at Lord’s. It was the first I had known of the tournament, and there was England in the final against New Zealand. It was an aspect of cricket that I had known nothing about. It wasn’t something that was on television, or in the newspapers, although the 1994 Wisden comments on the ‘excellent media coverage’ much of which I was oblivious. There was no internet to follow scores or social media to help get to know the players better, no one to bounce opinions off.
I was sold there and then. It didn’t matter that these weren’t men, I didn’t see a difference in terms of the competition. I couldn’t care less if the bowlers weren’t bowling at 90 miles an hour, or that the ball wasn’t clearing the boundaries. It is an argument I’m still making to this day to people who are dismissive of a game that is improving rapidly and with an event like the Big Bash and Kia Super League will only prove the quality of those pioneers that are taking the game into a professional era.
Before the time that all the home fixtures at least started to be covered by Sky Sports, it was as I’ve stated before hard to follow women’s cricket. That has of course been partly my fault. Some of it has been down to where the games have taken place at international level. I could have sought out the county game better. As I write this I have only ever been to two Sussex women’s games (more of which later.)
My first live experience of the England side was in 1998, an ODI between England and Australia. A month after my last GCSE exam I went to Hove. I would only be able to stay for the first innings as I had to take my sister to a school play that evening. The England side had a few of those world cup winners, Jan Brittin, Barbra Daniels, Clare Taylor (not to be confused with Claire Taylor, who was 12 on the scorecard) the wicket keeper Jane Smit, and captain Karen Smithies. There was also a young opener by the name of Charlotte Edwards who would become a truly household name.
Australia had won the toss and had chosen to bat and little did I know then just how good their batting line-up was. Belinda Clark, Joanne Broadbent, Lisa Keightley, Karen Rolton, and Mel Jones. Broadbent and Rolton both made half centuries.
I missed England fall 35 runs short, and also the chance to see just how impressive a bowler that Catherine Fitzpatrick was. I was on the verge of going away for the summer to work and prepare for college. Moving to Mansfield for the summer meant that I would be away from Sussex but not from cricket. It meant that I was near enough to Worcester to go to a day of the Women’s test match there.
It was overcast all day but I don’t remember it being cold. It was my first time in a new part of the country. I arrived at the ground just in time for the start of play, no time to explore the cathedral or the rest of Worcester. The crowd was also different to the ones I was used to. It was younger and there were more women around. It was friendly and I soon got into the day's play. England was in the process of having its tail put up a small amount of resistance. On the scorecard, I put England’s score down as a rather exaggerated 414 when they had in fact mustered 243 all out.
I only saw three Australian’s bat that day Keightley (50), Clark (136) and Rolton who finished the day on 97 not out, this after there were at least three extra overs bowled over than scheduled. I went to the wrong railway station on the way back and had to sprint to the other to catch the last train home. This after promising I would get the train before.
I was determined not to let England be the only team I would go to watch. When I got back home I found out that Sussex had a friendly against Derbyshire and I was going to go. I missed the bus and ended up getting the train instead even though it was cost ten times as much.
I got to the ground and they only had one umpire, to which for some reason volunteered with ‘I’ll do it’. I can’t believe they agreed to it. So there I was having only done a spot of umpiring in school games in the middle of a county match, albeit a friendly. I was given some good guidance from the other umpire. I turned down an lbw appeal from a Sussex bowler that I still wonder if turning it down was the right thing. I was paid £10 which just covered the cost of my travel expenses, so I can’t have been that bad at it. I couldn’t do it again. It wasn’t until 2015 that I saw Sussex play again.
It was the same summer job that allowed me to watch England the following year at Trent Bridge in and ODI against India that went down to the final ball with captain Smithies scoring an unbeaten 110 after Clare Connor had taken three wickets to restrict India to 220.
I didn’t get to another women’s game until 2006. A combination of being nowhere near where the games were being staged and a combination of work and university meant opportunities to get to any form of cricket was limited.
2005 had given Women’s cricket a higher profile, England games were given more prominence, and the players even got to take part in the open top bus ride around London with the men who had also won the Ashes that year.
That optimism didn’t seem to continue into the next year. With T20 finals day becoming an event in the men’s domestic calendar I booked that week off work. It coincided with the women’s test match at Leicester. I would be able to go to all four days. On the walk to the ground every morning I was passed by the coach carrying the England side.
Getting into the ground you would barely have noticed that this was an international fixture. The small crowd was made up mainly of friends and family of the England side. There were no more than a dozen Leicestershire members, although among them was Lewis. He was a well-known figure at Leicester and even had his own catchphrase, ‘I’ve got me Brandy.’
The game didn’t explode into life until the final day when England declared during the lunch break leaving them two sessions to win it. India held on with two wickets at the end, as fresh gloves and extra jumpers were brought on the field. With three of India’s top four dismissed for ducks England would have been disappointed not to have won.
Two Sussex players made their England debuts during that game. Laura Marsh, a fast bowler. The other was Sarah Taylor, someone who would come to score plenty of runs for England. It is her wicket-keeping that has made headlines and there are plenty examples to view on YouTube. It hasn’t come without setbacks and is currently taking her second break from the game.
The test was over, I went to thank Edwards for a fabulous and nearly tripped over a batting helmet at the same time. I also seem to be wearing a Sussex shirt whenever I meet her, which she always points out about Kent being better.
It was by accident that I became a volunteer at Trent Bridge for the World T20 competition in 2009. Looking for tickets for the England v Scotland warm-up game there was a notice looking for volunteers. Myself and a friend signed up and we got access to all the games at Trent Bridge. I don’t remember much about those games, but it did get me tickets for the finals day at Lord’s. We would do a lap of the ground to show the importance of those that helped make the competition possible.
England were in the final after beating Australia in a tense semi-final at The Oval. A game that has been cast as an example of just how exciting the women’s game can be. The final was more straight forward and England were busy celebrating while I got ready for my cameo appearance.
This was only months after England had taken the ODI World Cup in Australia. Having seen Laura Marsh make her England debut as a fast bowler, it was odd to see her now bowling spin, albeit very well. It just showed how out of the loop I was.
In between then and 2012 I had continued to follow the team on the radio and television. The coverage was getting better and under the stewardship of Charlie Dagnall and Ebony Rainford-Brent, I would listen while traveling all over the country. Their enthusiasm for the game is infectious, something that I have tried to install in my niece.
I took her to her first game when she was only a year old. I had won tickets for a T20 international at Arundel against West Indies. I got her a programme and helped her to get it signed by all the players, they couldn’t have been better with her. Edwards took the longest with her, asking her questions, while my niece waved her Sussex flag.
It was a game that showed signs that West Indies could become a force in the game, and it came as little surprise when they won the World T20 earlier this year.
England didn’t have a good time at the World cup the year after the trip to Arundel, they never really got going and went out fairly early. The teams that they had beaten easily a few years before had played catch up and in the case of Australia had overtaken them.
The men’s Ashes series of 2013/14 was going so horrendously that, even those that had never followed women’s cricket were looking to Charlotte Edwards and her team for some of the hope. Which is exactly what they delivered. The test match of the series was one that swung one way then the next. It was a low scoring game where Australia’s first innings total of 207 was highest of the game.
With a points system weighed in favour it was going to take something for Australia to take the Ashes series. They won two of the three ODIs. It wasn’t a surprise when England won the first T20 to win the series.
While England’s players were being paid to be ambassadors by Chance to Shine, it showed just how important women’s cricket was becoming to the ECB when they were rewarded true professional status after the successful Ashes series.
It was everything that the players deserved. With more money being generated from television money, it was only right that some of this was shared around the game. When England won the world cup in 1993 it was still seen as okay by the MCC to omit women members from Lord’s, now here they were 21 years later becoming part of the mainstream.
That isn’t to say that Women’s cricket gets the respect it is due. During the 2015 Women’s Ashes, I spent half a day arguing with a Derbyshire fan why an International match was more important than a Derbyshire versus Yorkshire Royal London One-Day Cup game. It would, after all, have been better for his county if he had attended the game in the flesh.
That series also raised the issue of whether the women’s game benefited from test matches. England had lost their first test as a professional team the year before to India, under far more scrutiny than there had ever been. It was put down to a blip, a team still getting used to their new status.
The Ashes test was different; it was a dour affair under leaden skies. There were people watching that were not used to the way that the women’s game worked. Yes, there were arguments to be made that a professional side should be looking to score runs faster and look to take the initiative. It was unfortunate that is wasn’t a greater spectacle but then the same things had been said about the men’s side in the last couple of years.
This was the only game I had made of the series. I was in Sussex for the T20 Blast quarter-final the night before, a game that David Willey won single handed. I had won tickets for the test at Canterbury thanks to a competition on the Kia twitter page. Kia are a company that has taken women’s cricket to its heart, being a sponsor independent of the men’s side as well as sponsoring the new women’s super league.
I picked my tickets up and was checking them when a woman approached me asking where she could get tickets as her friend needed one. I had a spare ticket so I said she was welcome to use it. “She used to play for England, I don’t know if you have heard of her. Enid Bakewell.” I was a little surprised but I knew who she was. A woman born in the next town over from the one I was born in, she is considered one of the best all-rounders.
I gave my ticket over and thought nothing on it as she went off with her friend. I the afternoon, as the rain fell steadily she came and joined myself and the other competition winners in hospitality, we were entertained with stories of her playing all over the world. The others were surprised that I had only met her that morning but enjoyed the experience. Though shocked that former players weren’t looked after a bit more.
So it was a shame that there was so much negativity around that match. There were moments of really exciting cricket, but people want high scoring games apparently. Paul Allott was coming out with nonsense like shorter pitches and lighter balls, and better judges of the game were calling for tests to be scrapped altogether. There should be more not less. T20 is a good introduction and list A cricket is entertaining but players need to be tested over a number of days.
It will come, maybe not in the next ten years or so, but then if you had told me the health of the game after that test at Leicester in 2006, it would be hard to believe.
The rise of professional leagues like the Women’s Big Bash and the Kia Super League are a good start. They raise the standards of the players just below international level, which if like England the only professionals are those who play for England, this is only a good thing.
The Kia Super League was a successful tournament, in the sense that no one knew what to expect. The crowds were good. I went to the first game played in the competition at Headingley as the Yorkshire Diamonds, took on Loughborough Lightning. There were people waiting for the gates to open and populated by a mix of ages and genders. This wasn’t just family and friends but people who wanted to watch good cricket.
As Sussex didn’t have a team in the competition and not willing to support a Southampton based team: for many reasons, Loughborough would be the team I adopted. I took my mum and she enjoyed the experience; not a traditional cricket supporter (her last game had been 20 years before), she got into the spirit of things and there we were two Loughborough fans in a fairly partisan crowd, which she liked all the more.
I went to the next Loughborough game, a home game against Lancashire Thunder. It was professionally managed and the entertainment was spot on. Loughborough looked well out of the running, until Thea Brookes and Paige Scholfield took the game down to the last over, made all the more nerve racking sitting feet away from Brookes family.
This was what part of this competition was about, giving those players just under the international places the chance to prove that they could mix it with the best. They were not the only ones but then again they weren’t playing for Loughborough.
In a lot of ways, much of the support and willingness to access the Kia Super League was not under assessed at the outset. It is dangerous to use the Big Bash as an example of how to do things (just ask some of the county sides), but they had televised the event and got good figures. The future of the tournament needs to be on free to air television. I don’t think it will detract the numbers going to games.
Clare Connor said that she was really pleased with the number of boys that were going to games because it was important to the future that they saw women playing cricket as ‘normal’. This, as I have stated, has been something that I have grown up with. There are times when your motive for watching women’s cricket is questioned, but never by anyone at the games I have been to and if anything my support has been welcomed.
I want my niece to see that she can achieve anything she puts her mind too. That might not be in the world of cricket, but I hope to give her a number of examples of women who have done just that.
Last year I finally went to my second Sussex Women’s game. I had meant to be playing cricket all day that day, we lost so heavily that when I got home I had enough time to get a bus up the road where Sussex were playing Nottinghamshire at their base of Welbeck Cricket Club. Sussex won, I came away thinking that I can’t leave it so long before the next time I see them again. Maybe one day I will watch my niece play for them. But then again it’s her choice.
