Cricket

A friend and I have created a cricket news and features website at leggieslounge.com. This is one of our articles.

For the second time in a lifetime - The evolution of women's cricket

It has got to a point in men’s cricket now that skills are not improving as rapidly as they were - and major sporting changes are only coming in response to rule changes, which are in response to complaints, and not in response to innovation. However, the generation of cricket fans born between 1950 and 1970 will have witnessed the first great fast bowlers, the first reverse swing bowlers, the first white-ball finishers, the invention of the doosra among many other things. I cannot remember anything that significant happening in my time watching cricket, however I can see a lot of these things start to emerge in women’s cricket, and for some, it’s for the second time in a lifetime.

It’s 2024, and women’s cricket has started to explode in the last decade. From the first England central contracts just a decade ago, to a score of 250 by England in a T20, to the creation of the Hundred and the WPL, women’s cricket has come on in leaps and bounds, much like men’s cricket did in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, but it’s not the same. I’ll attempt to assess and explain the reasons why women’s cricket will not develop the same as the men’s game, and I will also attempt to predict what we can look forward to in the next decade of the women’s game.

T20 the driving force

In the rise of men’s cricket, test and ODI cricket were the formats that existed, and a white ball specialist was very hard to come by until the 2000s. ODI cricket was seen as an inconvenience rather than exciting, and tests were seen as the pinnacle. In women’s cricket, tests are still seen as the pinnacle, but only around 5 of those take place every year, so there are no red-ball specialists. This will mean that bowlers who would be more suited to conventional test-match bowling may seem underwhelming, or have to develop new skills to stay relevant, such as Lauren Bell. Lauren Bell has one of the best in-swingers in the game, but her economy rate in ODIs is 6.29, above the rate that England have scored in a season ever. In the three test matches that Bell has played, she has taken 8 wickets at an average of 33, becoming an impact bowler for England. It is these types of bowlers that are unsustainable in the women’s game; you cannot just copy Jimmy Anderson’s action and call it a day, because you will have minimal variations and get hit for four frequently. I believe that raw pace will soon become the necessity, and bowlers like Anya Shrubsole will never come again, replaced by genuine pace bowlers, capable of hitting 80mph. Shabnim Ismail has come very close to hitting 80mph, and you would have thought that someone in their prime (Ismail is 35) and a little taller (Ismail is 5 '4) would be able to hit 80 mph easily, and this would set the precedent for generations to come. 

Sixes becoming more common

I did some research, and found that there have been 1730 WT20I games compared to 2427 MT20I games. This is not a huge surprise, but what is a huge surprise is the lack of sixes. In women’s T20I matches, there have only been 9 innings with more than 5 sixes. In men’s cricket, that figure jumps to around 370. That means that these innings occur in 0.5% of women’s matches. I would have to watch 200 WT20I games to witness one of these special innings. Since not many women’s T20I matches are broadcast live where I live, there’s a decent chance that I’d miss this innings anyway. 15% of men’s matches include one of these innings, so I’d only have to wait a couple of weeks for each one to happen. There are even some hundreds without any sixes in WT20I matches. It is very rare to see any sixes in associate women’s cricket, but sixes are all over the place in men’s T20I matches. This should start to change in years to come, as training regimes get sharper, and players get stronger. This should lead to more high-scoring matches, which will boost viewership figures, and be beneficial for the game as a whole.

It’s all been invented

In the 1980s, sweep shots were not all too common, reverse swing didn’t exist, finishing an innings certainly didn’t exist, and death overs meant bowling in the extreme heat, rather than at the end of an innings. These exciting innovations have been part of men’s cricketing journey, but it’s all been invented. Video analysis has been invented, and so have all the funky shots and funky balls, so there’s nothing really left to invent. I’m sure I will be surprised by the invention of new things in a couple of years, but for now, it seems like women’s cricket can only create a different genre of the sport, and not a different sport entirely. Of course, this feels a little pointless. Cricket is a game that’s constantly developing, but I believe that men’s cricket has been there and done all there is to do, and every game now is just an improvement on an old masterpiece, and not new in itself. With women’s cricket, the scope is endless, and comparing the two will be far more interesting in a decade’s time, and for those who witnessed the development of men’s cricket, it will be for the second time in a lifetime. Lucky you.