’s Cricket, and became the first woman anywhere in the world to become a radio commentator on cricket.
The Second World War brought millions of English women out of home into the services and factories – but it did not make much difference to women’s cricket afterwards. Another major expansion of state education continued to exclude cricket for girls, so just as before most women players, especially on England international duty, were privately educated with the time and the means to play as amateurs. This was reinforced by public policy in the 1970s and 1980s.
Although successive governments decided to promote sporting activity for women they all assumed that women were not interested in team games and instead promoted activities like swimming, keep-fit classes and dancing. Moreover, when laws were introduced to provide equal pay for women and outlaw sex discrimination these excluded cricket. To this day it is lawful in England to pay a female cricketer less than a male one of similar skill.
However, two post-war great players broke the mould of genteel women amateurs grateful to play cricket on terms set by men.
The all-rounder Enid Bakewell had a better Test match batting average than Javed Miandad (although from only 12 Tests, which were much rarer than men’s in her time and have become much rarer now.) A miner’s daughter, Enid was fortunate and unusual in being introduced to cricket at her state school. She was even more unusual in identifying as a socialist and a feminist.
Rachael Heyhoe, later Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, was the first England women’s cricketer to become a household name. As a campaigner for women’s cricket and, especially, payments for women cricketers, and one who embraced the media and commercial sponsorship, she was a dramatic, modernizing, one-woman force.
She never feared to confront the Establishment in both men’s and women’s cricket. Later in life she joined the Establishment herself as the first female cricketer to become a member of the House of Lords. Often called the W G Grace of women’s cricket, she will follow Grace in having gates named after her at Lord’s.
In the late 1990s under government pressure, the WCA dissolved itself and women’s cricket was subsumed into the England and Wales Cricket Board. As with similar mergers in other countries including Pakistan this change had big consequences. English women’s cricket gained huge new resources, which finally allowed England’s top women cricketers to become the first in the world to get paid as full-time professionals. But there are still regrets among women cricket players and supporters that English women’s cricket is no longer run by women who knew it and loved it and that they have been replaced almost entirely by white middle-aged male strangers.
Around the same time, women finally broke into the bastion of the MCC, at the direction of an enlightened President, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, the former Hampshire captain. Long waiting lists (the current time is 29 years!) have ensured that it is still dominated by male members.
Lord’s did not stage a women’s match until 1976 and the present fixture list is virtually a male preserve. This may change under Claire Connor, former England women’s captain, as the first female President.
T20 has given English women’s cricket a huge stimulus, especially the proliferation of overseas T20 competitions, which has given the best women players new earning opportunities. The advent of “double headers” – top grade men’s and women’s T20 matches played on the same day – forced the media to show and report women’s cricket seriously.
Coverage, spectatorship and above all participation in English women’s cricket have risen exponentially in just the last five years. Improved playing standards, international success, above all the World Cup victory in 2017 followed by millions on television, have made the game commercially attractive. The top players such as Sarah Taylor, widely recognized among the best wicketkeepers in the world, female or male, have gained name recognition and good incomes from playing and produ