With the inaugural Women’s U19 World Cup just weeks away, CRICKETher has learned of severe disparities in the treatment of the England Women’s and Men’s U19 squads over the winter.
The England Men’s U19s have just returned from two weeks together doing “warm weather” training in Abu Dhabi. In the new year they will travel to Australia for a month-long tour, playing Australia Men’s U19s in two Youth Tests, three Youth ODIs and one Youth IT20.
By contrast, the England Women’s U19 squad have spent the entire winter at Loughborough training indoors, with “warm weather” opportunities ahead of the World Cup quite literally non-existent.
In a recent piece on the ECB’s own website, new Men’s U19 Head Coach Michael Yardy says: “At this level it’s really important that we’re able to offer a range of experiences that can add value to a young player’s development.“
It begs the question – why deny those experiences to a group of young women of the same age? Are they somehow less worthy of having their development enhanced?
It makes even less sense given that the women will have had far less opportunities so far in their careers than their male counterparts, who are almost all embedded in professional county structures by the time they are selected for the Young Lions. In addition, the U19 women are about to compete in a World Cup against sides who have been playing competitive cricket throughout the English winter.
If budgets were a concern, the money being spent on sending the men to Abu Dhabi presumably could have been split between the two squads and used to send both sides “short-haul” for warm weather training.
Can there really be any excuse for such enormous disparity in the treatment of the two junior set-ups?
CRICKETher 
Dear Raf, Why am I not surprised at another example of blatant sexual discrimination evinced by that bastion of male privilege, the ECB (Effing Cricketing Bastards). Isn’t their motto: “All cricketers are equal, but some are more equal than others.”? Did the idea, as you suggest, of splitting the budget between the men and women never enter their minds? Perhaps the initials ECB really stand for “Equality Cannot Be”. It is a pity that patriarchal attitudes are so deeply ingrained in our society. Thanks for this post, Raf; and please keep on exposing the hypocrisy rampant within the ECB. Who knows, perhaps someday they will get the message. Ciao. John Thomson ♀︎🏏😻 John Thomson #17 – 415 Superior Street Victoria, BC V8V 1T5 CANADA Phone: 250-384-0661 john.thomson8@icloud.com
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No excuses for this lack of investment. How can the side be expected to succeed with this type of preparation? This looks and sounds poor for the ECB, but sadly not that surprising. Good work to show them up Raf.
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Spot on as always Raf
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