Len Hutton is reported to have once said that women’s cricket was “absurd, like a man trying to knit”. The comment dates back to 1963, but reading through the report of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, it appears there are a number of Len Huttons continuing to lurk within English and Welsh cricket. The report labels them “Type Ks” – white, affluent, middle-class men who still, for the most part, run cricket, and who still treat women’s cricket as, well, a bit of a joke.
It is sad but true that anyone who has any involvement in women’s cricket in England or Wales will find themselves nodding in recognition at some of the scenarios described in the report. The commission spoke to women throughout the game – recreational and elite players, female umpires and coaches – and found damning evidence of a culture of sexism, at all levels. “Women and women’s teams are frequently demeaned, stereotyped and treated as second-class,” the Icec findings read. “This included misogynistic and derogatory comments about women and girls, and everyday sexism … There was evidence of unwanted and uninvited advances from men towards women.”
The report also concludes that women have little or no power, voice or influence within cricket’s decision-making structures – a point Heather Knight disputed on Monday, saying she feels that “things have changed” since she took on the England captaincy seven years ago. “My voice has definitely been listened to a lot more recently,” she said. “We’ve still got some way to go, but I do think things are starting to tip in women’s cricket.”
Jon Lewis, the England women head coach, concurred with the assessment. “We’ve got some really strong, powerful women in the dressing room who have got really strong options about how the game should be moving forward,” he said. Ironic, then, that neither Knight nor Lewis appeared to have been briefed in advance on how to respond to the report – despite its far-reaching implications for the women’s game.
The report calls on the England and Wales Cricket Board to undertake “a fundamental overhaul of the professional women players’ pay structure”, with the aim of achieving equal pay at domestic level by 2029 and at international level by 2030. This is radical to a mind-boggling extent. No other team sport in England, including football, has achieved anything even approaching equal pay between men and women.
Within cricket, the Board of Control for Cricket in India and New Zealand Cricket both introduced equal match fees last year, while Australia’s female cricketers, by far the best paid in the global game, enjoy a revenue-sharing model with the men. This, though, is in a different ballpark: the commission wants average salaries, prize money and commercial pay to match the men’s within seven years. And by the start of the 2024 season – a mere 10 months away – minimum salaries for the women’s regional teams should be equal to those of the men’s first-class counties.
The obvious question is how the ECB would fund such an undertaking. One relatively straightforward way, in economic terms, would be to lower the salaries of men’s players, an idea which I actually mooted to the commission when I gave evidence 18 months ago. But the ECB has stated that it will “work with the whole game to build a plan of action”, and one suspects the idea of taking money away from Peter to give to Pauline will go down like a bucket of cold sick with most of the key decision-makers.
Something else which will ruffle feathers among the men’s counties is the recommendation that the women’s game should have equal representation to the men’s game throughout English and Welsh cricket’s governance structure, including membership of the ECB and representation on its board and committees. Of course it is patently unfair that the 18 first-class counties would, as it stands, be able to vote to abolish the Hundred without any reference at all to those running women’s cricket. And yet, as the saying goes: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
And that, perhaps, is the problem. For all that the ECB has bravely commissioned this report, and appears, to its credit, determined to take on board its findings, cultural change across a sport founded on centuries of misogyny – particularly across the recreational game which relies on a network of “Type K” volunteers – will be far from straightforward to achieve.
• This article was amended on 27 June 2023. An earlier version implied that Heather Knight and Jon Lewis could have read the Report of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket before it was released. However, the ECB says it did not share the report with players or staff, or brief them before it was released. A reference to the report “sitting in the ECB’s inbox for several months” has been removed.
