Olympic Ambitions

Several papers are reporting a renewed push to include cricket in the Olympics. The Guardian reports:

The MCC World Cricket Committee is backing the inclusion of Twenty20 at the 2024 Olympic Games, believing it could lead to "a potential boost" in the profile of the sport.

It is unclear whether a men's competition would include the top players or not. (Tennis chooses to allow this; football doesn't, because of the fear that it would undermine the FIFA World Cup.)

Regardless, it would seem likely that a women's competition would include all of the top players and teams; and as such it could only be a good thing, with guaranteed TV coverage and global publicity... both of which were notably missing from a certain other event I could mention!

England skipper Lottie Edwards is on record as saying that she wished cricket had been part of London 2012. If she plays long enough*, she might just get her wish at Paris '24!

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* Unlikely, but...!

Throwing The Dice (U19 ARCH Trophy)

Some of England's brightest young prospects have been playing cricket in the UAE this week, competing for the U19 ARCH Trophy, faithfully blogged by Martin Davies at http://womens-cricket.blogspot.co.uk.

In his final post, Martin comments that the tournament was won "unsurprisingly" by the MCC; and I just wanted to elaborate a little on why this was indeed "unsurprising".

The final was played between Sussex (pretty-much top dogs in women's domestic cricket at the moment) and an MCC side that contained both Izzy Collis and Abigail Freeborn - two highly rated young players who hail from... er... Sussex!

So in essence the tournament was a loaded dice, with the MCC "YCs" (Young Cricketers) having creamed-off the best players from all the other teams. (More info on the composition of the MCC side here.)

I don't want to knock the ARCH as an exercise - the players gained invaluable experience; and it certainly looked on Twitter like they were having the time of their lives out in sunny UAE.

But as a "competition" the main thing we learned is that if you throw a loaded dice... it does tend to land on '6' more often than not!

This was Great (We Should Do It More Often!)

Nothing's perfect... and the recent World Cup was no exception. The format was borked when Sri Lanka failed to read the script and started winning games, making a farce of the decision not to carry all points through from the group stages; and issues with the venues (some admittedly beyond the control of the cricketing authorities) meant several games went ahead with no TV coverage, which was unfortunate to say the least.

But overall I'd have to say that the tournament was pretty great. (Not as great as it would have been if England had won, but... you can't have everything. Apparently.)

More than anything this was because, while there was only realistically ever one winner, the race to face Australia in the final was a genuinely close call between England, West Indies and New Zealand; with Sri Lanka also 'turning up' in the group stages at least.

That's why it is such a pity that we have to wait a four-year eternity before we do it again. (Albeit with two (?) World T20s in between.)

I would agree that a quadrennial tournament makes sense for the men's game, which has test cricket to feast on; but the World Cup is the primary focus of women's cricket and an annual competition would be a key step forward in building the commercial momentum of the game, allowing kids and more casual fans the opportunity to develop an acquaintance with the players that just isn't possible when they are only on-screen once in every four years.

Sure, it is a bit of a radical step. The traditionalists won't like it; and I suspect that some of the players might be against it too, on the grounds that it would be the final mail in the coffin of women's test cricket.

But if we want to build a genuinely successful commercial future for the game, I think it is something we should consider.

21 Days Of Summer

England Women - August 2013

As you can see from the attached calendar, England's entire summer this year is packed into the space of just 21 days in August; with an Ashes test, 3 ODIs and 3 T20s - all v. Australia.

I understand that financial considerations loom large here - with the cost of the teams' hotels coming in at (on the back of an envelope) well over £15,000 per week; but still, it does seem to be taking a huge gamble on the notorious roulette wheel that is the English weather.

In fact... I'll go long and call the test right now - as a rain-affected draw! Ditto the last T20 in "sunny" Durham. (Can I get an accumulator on that Paddy?)

T20 Double-Headers a Mixed Blessing?

Raf Nicholson has been troll-hunting again, following the publication of a somewhat petty and unedifying rant about women's sport in general, and women's cricket in particular, by a local rag which I refuse to dignify with a name, let alone a link.

However, it does raise one issue with which I kind-of, sort-of, almost [That's enough qualifiers - Ed.] agree:

The T20 double-headers, featuring a women's game followed by a men's game (of which there are a couple more this summer) have been a bit of a mixed blessing.

On the positive side, they've gotten some 'numbers on the board' in terms of viewing figures; though honestly I'm not all that convinced. How many people actually turned up early enough to see the women's game at Chelmsford last year? There sure looked to be a lot of empty seats on the TV!

Which takes us to another positive: they've been covered on the TV, which can't be bad... can it?

Well... no... except... the problem with it is that it allows SKY to fulfill their 'moral' obligations to cover women's cricket, while not actually having to do anything more than turn the cameras on a couple of hours earlier. It's a bit like promoting a woman to 'Director Without Portfolio' and then claiming you've 'done your bit' to break the glass ceiling.

But the real worry is that it reinforces the perception that the women's game is an 'opening act' to the 'proper cricket' which follows; inviting exactly the kind of unwanted comparisons we see in the afore(un)mentioned article. ("Yer... but... if you put Sarah Taylor... in a cage fight... with a bear... she just couldn't [square] cut it, could she?")

I guess on balance, I'd still rather have the double-headers than not; but as blessings go... this one comes with salt as well as sugar!

Hol-Col on WWC13

England spinner Holly Colvin has been blogging about her world cup.

In a delightfully "off-message" and personal post, completely devoid of the usual cricketing-claptrap about executing her plans and/or hitting the right areas, she admits to feeling "sick" with nerves while waiting to bat; but it is her slo-mo description of that momentous final ball against Australia which I want to highlight:

We now needed three runs to win and Erin Osbourne, the Aussie offspinner, dragged one slightly short outside the off stump. The offside field is up, I’ve tried to cut the ball and instead of taking all the glory I nicked it to the ‘keeper. I was absolutely heart-broken especially as we had got so close to winning.

Hol-Col is frequently touted... by me at least... as a future England captain; which will mean an inevitable dose of "media awareness training". I just hope (probably in vain) it doesn't knock this kind of honesty too much on the head, because it was lovely to read.

Women's Cricket, Men's Cricket & Proper Cricket

Rob Steen no doubt thought he was being terribly "right-on" when he wrote this fictional "tomorrow's news" piece, about a woman playing men's cricket.

He wasn't.

What is truly insidious is the perpetuation of the underlying narrative that the women's game somehow isn't "proper cricket", and that a woman could only be genuinely validated and fulfilled by playing "proper" (i.e. men's) cricket.

I wonder if Rob thinks Serena Williams should be playing men's tennis? I wonder if he'd like to say that to her face?

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* NB that if we take the story 'as written', SJT is not playing on merit.