Opinion
The Women’s World Cup wrapped up on Sunday and what a wonderful tournament this was.
A tournament held amid the shadow of COVID was hosted beautifully. It had strong attendances, some fantastic games of cricket, and a deserved champion.
Hopefully, this tournament proves to be a stepping stone for the progress of women’s sport everywhere.
Women’s sport has taken off in this country. Women’s cricket, in particular, has taken some big strides in the last few years.
Broadcasting arrangements have improved, pitches have been better, the standard of the games have been more competitive in general and there have been some baby steps in more investment and more progress.
But in a sport where men’s cricket grabs more eyeballs and consequently money, for far too long the women’s format has been neglected and suffers from poor scheduling and investment.
(Photo by Hannah Peters-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
Particularly with how still many perceive it in many different countries.
For example, let’s start with India. The Indian men’s side is highly successful, has huge investment in grassroots cricket and their players turn out for the money-laden IPL – a franchise-driven T20 tournament.
How does their women’s side fare in comparison? Historically the Indian women’s side have struggled in ICC tournaments and on the rare occasions they toured.
But that is changing now – they made the finals of 2017 ODI and 2020 T20 World Cups, and were very competitive away in Australia, England and now New Zealand.
However, issues remain with how their administration works for them – it took a media scandal for their players to be paid their prize money for being runners up in the T20 World Cup (and just over 14 months for that to happen).
The majority of Indian women are relegated to playing a four-day tournament in the midst of the men’s IPL and there is no standalone franchise tournament for them. The number of viewers they pull in watching their own team remains disastrously low.
CA put money into the WBBL and made it standalone. It is the best women’s tournament on the planet. Players are paid well.
Yet for some reason, when it comes to ICC tournaments, the women’s cricketers are struggling to be seen on free-to-air TV.
They are the same cricketers who are on free-to-air TV when playing in Australia and bring in record ratings.
They are the all-conquering women’s side playing a World Cup in NZ (where the time zone isn’t an issue) and they’ve to go to social media battling dinosaurs in broadcasting studios for a right to be visible in every television in the country.
Women cricketers have battled far more to be relevant than their men counterparts.
(Photo by Hagen Hopkins-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
From being paid so little that they weren’t even playing cricket professionally until a few years back, handling jobs alongside their cricketing careers, to the extreme scenarios where they are banned from playing cricket altogether (such as Afghanistan under the Taliban).
They’ve faced massive scheduling issues for decades (count the number of women’s Tests and then look at the quality of the last few of them), and big scheduling holes in their calendars where they’d be sitting at home nine out of 12 months.
There are situations where they wait a year to get paid and there is the hardship in developing economies to become a cricketer in the first place, fighting stigma and taboo. Men have it easier in almost every part of the cricketing world.
And despite all this, put them on a field and we see nail-biting finishes in Test matches. World Cups drew record crowds and TV ratings. Successful tournaments like the women’s Hundred and the WBBL are played in high standards.
Countries like Thailand are rising to the forefront despite the ICC failing them. Women from rural backgrounds are making it big. The women’s game is improving despite the shackles it still has.
This World Cup was brilliant – nail-biting finishes, great athleticism and catching, huge hundreds, record chases – and it was played in the best of spirits. It was a winner in every definition of the world.
The cricketing world needs more women’s cricket. It can work parallel to the men’s cricket.
It needs more tournaments and more investment. It needs broadcasters to trust people will watch. And it needs to be finally given an equal footing in terms of opportunities.
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