The Roar
The Roar

Isabelle Westbury

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Joined October 2015

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Isabelle is a freelance broadcast and print journalist with a focus on politics and sport, especially cricket. She has written for a number of publications including The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Mail on Sunday and ESPN Cricinfo. She is also a broadcast journalist for the BBC, calling on both men's and women's domestic and international cricket matches. She studied at Oxford University, where she was President of the Oxford Union, and is now Middlesex CCC women’s cricket captain. She barracks for Essendon, mainly due to the legal intrigue the club provides. Isabelle tweets from @izzywestbury and can also be found on her website - isabellewestbury.com

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Agreed. It’s all a balance, and I agree CA have got a fair few things wrong, but also a lot right.

The county members are a blessing and a curse to English cricket – spot on in retaining the importance of longer form cricket but their demographic is an ageing one and very narrow too; where CA have perhaps gone too far in favour of T20, England’s domestic set up arguably not enough. All swings and roundabouts. Can’t have it all, although India making a good fist of it at the moment.

Cricket's not dead yet: The hyperbole raging through Australia

Love some of these lists! There are some great names and defo a few would have been a bit more obvious in the line-up, but intention here was to factor in a mixture of raw talent and skill (Dev), with a bit of innovation (Bosanquet et al.), as well as something completely different (Dawson)…

Golden generation: Old boys who missed the T20 carrot

Any stats for this? Evidence and I’ll believe it.

Cover the sport, not the spectacle

Nice example re Sarah Taylor playing men’s first grade in Adelaide. She took a couple of catches by the way but didn’t bat – she was next in, and her team won. Agree almost impossible to find out though…

Cover the sport, not the spectacle

Agree with this comment: “…there may be a fear to be seen as sexist…” and something that’s always going to be difficult to handle. In an ideal world journalists do their job, scrutinise the players (male or female), criticise if they’re underperforming, praise where it’s due, and we all take it as part and parcel coverage of the game. Realise that this isn’t an ideal world and many interpretations possible. Hopefully with increasing coverage journalists and the public accept it’s not a reflection of a sex, but of a performance…

Cover the sport, not the spectacle

Not a complaint, just a progression. Amazing the coverage women’s sport is getting, but to really take it seriously need to cover the on-field action. IMO, that is…

Cover the sport, not the spectacle

Agreed on the whole – although not particularly enthusiastic re the Cricket All-Stars venture in the US. When I say select regardless of age – isn’t an unconditional endorsement of a team full of plus 40s. The game that’s already been played was pretty slow to watch, especially the fielding. It’s all about standards I guess – if you reach the expected levels of athleticism, skill, concentration etc. then I couldn’t care how old you are, but I think it’s pretty evident that a lot of the players involved in this little US venture are passed it, non? Fair play for a bit of fun and coffer-filling, but can’t seriously be viewed as a legitimate strategy to promote cricket in the US!?

Australia's youthful obsession: Forget the figure in the age column

I won’t lie Henk, you’ve got me stumped there. Not entirely sure how to respond…

Australia's youthful obsession: Forget the figure in the age column

Super interesting. Lots of parallels between baseball and cricket, of course.

Australia's youthful obsession: Forget the figure in the age column

Hear, hear.

Australia's youthful obsession: Forget the figure in the age column

Good digging. Although I feel as though my current cricketing status exemplifies my point. I am, of course, planning to break back into the international fold in about 10 years time.

Australia's youthful obsession: Forget the figure in the age column

Here’s hoping. #testcapatfourty

Australia's youthful obsession: Forget the figure in the age column

Agreed (Dom). Re bowlers Siddle selection (in the squad at least) perhaps proof that Australia’s policy is adapting to form over anything else. Although everyone thinks he’s older than he actually is.

Re the women’s game it used to be far worse than the men’s in terms of fastracking young prodigies because, due to the prominently amateur state of the game, the fear was always that players would retire in their middling twenties in order to go and get a ‘proper’ job.

Australia's youthful obsession: Forget the figure in the age column

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