England captain Heather Knight and Kate Cross celebrate (Picture: Getty Images)
England have levelled the women’s Ashes against the best team in the world! Heather Knight is England’s dame in shining armour.
Sophie Ecclestone’s leaping catches are solid as a rock! And to cap it off, Alice Capsey’s refound her touch with the bat. This week, I’m all about ‘Cazball’.
So in honour of our female England cricketers, I’m going to tell you about a tiny women’s team in north-east London called Stoke Newington Cricket Club.
I first became aware of Hackney as a cricketing Mecca last summer, when I was encouraged quite forcefully by a mate into playing, despite never having competed in a full game of cricket, and having my cricketing ambitions stymied at the age of eight by a coach who said he’d resign if I bowled as well as the boys when trying out for my local team.
Come to Hackney, no one’s judging, said my pal. Now here’s the thing. Given I consider myself a fairly competent sportswoman, I’m embarrassed to record this in a national newspaper but the truth is… I can’t properly throw.
Many women in their 30s can’t. I would go so far as to say that most women currently late 20s or older cannot consistently exchange accurate passes. There are some interesting academic studies into the way women learn to take up space that affects this but the main reason is the simplest one – girls haven’t until very recently been taught how to throw.
Add to that the fear of being laughed at for doing it ‘like a girl’ and you have an obstructive cocktail that means, despite great campaigns like This Girl Can and a gradual improvement in media coverage of women, most generations of women are still lost to the joy of team sport.
But not in this corner of London. Stoke Newington women’s cricket team launched in 2020 thanks to some brilliant work from the existing men’s side. It now has three regular teams featuring players aged from 11 to 54 of any and all skin colours and religious backgrounds. Playing alongside 13-year-olds really makes the graph of age to throwing ability clear. I went along, no one minded, and there are two coaching sessions a week if I want to learn.
Alice Capsey is a rising star of the women’s game (Picture: Getty Images)
At the end of last month, the people who run cricket in this country (the ECB) released the report Holding Up a Mirror to Cricket, concluding among other things that the women’s game is ‘frequently demeaned, stereotyped and treated as second-class’ and that racism is entrenched in the English game.
In the wake of this and the Jonny Bairstow stumping controversy in the men’s Ashes and the sight of a purple-faced Long Room at Lord’s going in on the Aussies, much has been said about the spirit of cricket.
In 2021, the ECB allocated a £3,000 grant to Stoke Newington to help develop their female team. Former England international Ebony Rainford-Brent has set up the ACE Programme with backing from Surrey County Cricket Club to address the slide in black participation in England.
Between 1921 and 1970, women’s football was banned in this country and elsewhere, as it reached levels of popularity those in charge felt to be a threat. Many people believe this had no impact on the women’s game’s development.
Sophie Ecclestone is an inspiration to young cricketers (Picture: Getty Images)
Since women’s teams are opening the game up to new swathes of the population with generosity and care, can I propose a solution to English cricket’s woes? We focus all the ECB’s resources on women’s cricket for the next ten years and watch the magic happen.
At Lord’s for the third women’s Ashes T20, while eating my pizza in a rain break chatting with pals about Amy Jones’ dreamy keeping, we found ourselves on the end of a slog swept tennis ball from a group of three girls. They were having fun, and for once, in such a place – the home of cricket, where no women’s Test has ever been played – they were welcome.
Forget intricacies of etiquette. The fight each female member of the England team has had merely to learn to play, and the cheer with which they strive for better for the next generation. The work ACE are doing to help kids play the game. The way everyone at Stokey makes sure we all have enough kit and enough confidence, so no one is put off by lack of resource or of skill.
That’s the spirit of cricket. All else is folly.
It’s time to support the women’s game.
