by Martin Saxon

As has been so often the case in recent years, there was a new name on the Cheshire Women’s League trophy this year. There has only been one instance of a team retaining the title in the last 13 years, and in this time, as many as eight different clubs have topped the table. 

For the first time, the Championship was won by Wilmslow club Lindow, completing their remarkable rise through the league structure, with their women’s first team having been champions of division 4 as recently as 2019. Heidi Cheadle grabbed many of the headlines throughout the season, scoring a league record 777 runs, including four centuries. Lindow’s varied and exciting young bowling attack also played a significant role though. 

Lindow didn’t have it all their own way, losing two league matches along the way, and you now must go back as far as 2013 to find the last time that a Division 1 team went through a season unbeaten. Chester Boughton Hall finished second and Leigh third. 

In the highly competitive top division, it was always going to be a good team who were relegated, and here Stockport Georgians well and truly pulled off a great escape, winning all of their last three matches when their position had looked more than precarious prior to this. It was Nantwich who eventually ended up with the wooden spoon, and they will be replaced in next year’s top flight by Northop Hall.  

The joint highest wicket takers in Division 1 were Chester Boughton Hall’s Carys Lambe and Oakmere’s Sarah Worsdale, with 18 each. 

Lindow’s successes continued as their second team won Division 3 East, while the only teams in the hardball leagues to finish with an unbeaten record were Runcorn in Division 4 West and Whalley Range in Division 4 East. The feat was also repeated by three of the six winners of the Division 5 softball competitions: Widnes, Sale and Macclesfield. Didsbury were unbeaten champions of the senior T20 competition. 

There were also significant achievements for league clubs in external competitions. Leyland became the first Cheshire League team to win a national competition by landing the Plate prize in the ECB’s National Knockout.  

Five of the league’s Division 1 teams were chosen – alongside three from the Lancashire League – to play in the Thunder Cup, a new competition for the north-west of England, organised by Lancashire CCC. Significantly, the final of this competition was played at Old Trafford, surely the first time that a women’s club match has been played at the Test ground? It was Stockport Georgians who emerged triumphant here, beating Leigh by eight wickets in the final. 

2025 TEAM HONOURS

by Helen Maynard-Casely

A timelapse of the milky way making its way across the sky of the Southern hemisphere.

One thing you will notice is that in the cacophony of stars, those celestial bodies you would normally recognise fade a bit, as the great mass of others become brighter – it is not that anything has dimmed, you just get to see all the stars a bit more. A good metaphor for the coming Australian domestic cricket summer.

The crossover of the seasons is upon us, as Autumn’s grasp and muddy fields take hold, finals have reached their dramatic conclusions in the UK. Down in the Southern half of the globe training camps are reaching their fruition and first game nerves are taking hold. With that, the curtain will rise on the 2025/26 season of the Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL) on Wednesday.

Those unfamiliar to Australian domestic women’s cricket may not be so aware of the league, which like the Sheffield Shield weaves around other adventures in the domestic and international cricketing calendar. Though mainly state based, the WNCL includes a seventh team in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Meteors. In deference to the geography of Australia, there are not ‘home and away’ fixtures – but each team does play each other twice within each round, so seven rounds in total will play out with each team given a bye over the course of the season.

Why cacophony of stars metaphor? Well the established Australian internationals will struggle to make it out for their state teams teams (despite the fanfare of Ellyse Perry’s return to the NSW Breakers), with neat overlaps of the WNCL rounds occurring between every major international calendar date in their season. Hence, the chances for others to find their luminance.

Rounds one and two are squeezed in before the pomp and circuses of the domestic 20/20 season, and will be missing the Australian internationals as they warm up and compete in India for the 50 over World Cup. There’s then a long break in proceedings as the Spring challenge and Big Bash roll into town, so that the WNCL doesn’t recommence until 2026. The two January rounds will overlap with the Women’s Premier League in India, where Australian International stars are in high demand, keeping them from State duties. February’s two rounds will then overlap with the Australia v India multi-format tour. The last round (and the final, between the two teams that finish at the top of the table) will be in mid-March, when the Aussie team will have jetted to the Caribbean for the next multi-format international adventure. So without the ‘big’ players – who will rise to prominence?

Who to watch in 25/26? (you’ll note that in the team pages, despite now in the 8th year of full professionalism of the WNCL, not all the women even have a picture on their state page… sigh)

QLD Fire – It is only perhaps a matter of time before Charli Knott becomes a fixture in the international side, but until then we can marvel at her domestic outings. Jess Jonassen will lead a side that has kept together pretty well from last season, stats demonstrate that their success last year derived from an all-round team performance.

NSW Breakers – The success of the breakers last year can be traced to batting powerhouses Tahlia Wilson and Annika Learoyd, who both had terrific seasons and topped the number of runs in the competition respectively in 24/25. They will be back for more – and will be ably assisted by Katie Mack who has moved from the ACT Meteors into the side. The young sensation of WBBL10, Caoimhe Bray has also scored a contract with the side. NSW breakers look formidable and up for keeping their mitts on the trophy.

TAS Tigers – After a run of titles, Tasmania will be hungry to get back to the top, and with the most experienced captain in the competition, Elyse Villani, they no doubt have the leadership to get back there. They have recruited Scotswoman Kathryn Bryce, along with Courtney Sippel who will only add to their team strengths.

SA Women – Amanda-Jade Wellington topped the table of wickets over last season’s WNCL by a margin of 6, she also bowled A LOT – 117 overs (only topped by NSW’s Sam Bates). Bridget Patterson, the quiet achiever (and nonchalant celebrator) of Australia domestic cricket takes the gloves and along with Courtney Webb will lead the batting. SA are always a challenging team to beat, and were the ones to arguably keep Tasmania out of the final last season. They will continue to be a thorn in the side of the others.

VIC Women – With six of their contracted players due to be away from the WNCL on national duties, Victoria will probably struggle to make headway. But Molly Strano is back at her home state, and as ever it will be hard not to see a certain M Lanning make an impact in her 50 over element.

ACT Meteors – Georgia Elwiss returns to play for the Meteors this season, and steps neatly into the senior play position left vacant by Katie Mack. She will be supported in building runs by Olivia Porter and Zoe Cooke, along with newly contracted locals Stella Wilde and Rachel Carroll.

WA Women – WA will be looking to improve their table spot this season, and of the table last year, and bringing Heather Graham over from Tasmania would have seen the most excellent way to start this. But with Grace Harris’ injury Graham has now been drafted into the national side, which will be a blow for WA for rounds one and two at least. The team though has much young talent, an exciting trio in Innes McKeon, Rebbecca McGrath and Maddie White will be fun to see develop over the season.

Round 1 fixtures – ACT Meteors with a bye

That’s the preview. Think of it like lying back on a grassy bank, taking in a deep breath and filling your lungs with the damp grassy scent. Open your eyes, see the stars above you. Enjoy.

Helen (Crystallised Cricket) is a writer based in Dharug and Gundagarra country and acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands that she writes from.

Please note that the opinions of guest contributors to CRICKETher do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor.

By Andy Frombolton

The clamour for Jon Lewis to be sacked as England coach continues – without anyone explaining what he’s done so wrong or, more pertinently, what anyone else could realistically have done differently or better.

Heavily shackled by having to primarily select from a centrally-contracted group whose limits are well evidenced, and additionally limited by the paucity of credible ‘ready-to-go’ alternatives, Lewis has done as well as could be expected with the hand he was dealt.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Edwards is widely heralded as The Answer to the Problem. Whilst there’s no denying that she’s enjoyed significant achievements as a coach, recent results suggest that success doesn’t invariably follow wherever she goes: Vipers finished third in last year’s RHF Trophy and the CEC; Sydney Sixers finished fifth and sixth in the last 2 WBBLs; and MI were third in last years WPL (and hold the same position currently). In her early coaching days she also undoubtedly benefitted from the ‘Lottie Effect’ – attracting good players who wanted to be in her orbit with the resultantly-strong teams routinely crushing their opponents.

And what would her conditions be for taking the role? The right to ditch established players (however embarrassing for the ECB – and financially wasteful – this might be if they hold long contracts)? To prioritise trialling players during the upcoming summer series over results? For the ECB to publicly acknowledge that re-building will take a few years and may entail some low ‘lows’ en route? If those freedoms are what’s needed, why not just give Lewis the same?

It’s my strong view that Lewis is a good coach and that he should remain, perhaps with Edwards appointed as an advisor or deputy.

My earlier use of the term ‘rebuilding’ was deliberate because, for all the investment in the England team and for all the record-breaking crowds, the simple fact is that the current England squad’s collective zenith isn’t high enough to beat Australia or India in 50 over cricket.

Defenders of individual incumbents might seek to cite ICC rankings or statistics to justify their continued selection – but this ignores the fact that the majority of their performances are against international teams which are weaker than the better Tier 1 counties. The true test of an international cricketer is how they perform against the strongest opponents and, as illustrated in my last article, the performances of most of the current England squad crumble when playing Australia.

In which case, what possible purpose is served by continuing to pick this same group of players? Sometimes you need to accept that no amount of coaching or training or additional match experience is going to transform a player into a world beater. Business people refer to the ‘sunk cost fallacy’ to describe a cognitive bias that causes people to keep investing in something even when it’s no longer beneficial. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the original decision was wrong – just that it didn’t work out as hoped.

With the freedoms referred to earlier, whoever’s head coach this summer should therefore announce a series of England vs England A games to be played across the summer pitching incumbents (desperate to prove they still warrant their place) against challengers (eager to show that they don’t).

These games shouldn’t be hidden away, played behind closed gates as if they’re some sort of shameful talent slugfest, but promoted to encourage crowds and media scrutiny; with the best performers selected for the summer international series. (If some centrally-contracted players subsequently lose their places, the message can be all about the opening-up of the selection process to hitherto-overlooked talent rather than the ousted. That’s what PR people are for!)

The best performers should then play in a series of England A games versus the touring teams. (No touring team should turn down the chance for more match practice.)

The sooner the rebuilding starts, the sooner we’ll have an international team capable of matching Australia and India.

Here’s the 3 steps needed:

1. The ECB clarifies the head coach situation and announces a series of England vs England A matches; explaining that the purpose is to identify the group of players capable of (A) winning the 2026 World Cup (to be held in England), or (B) the Ashes in 2027.

Players should be given a proper ‘run’ to prove themselves at the highest level. Remember, Knight didn’t score a 50 until her 10th ODI innings and her second in her 33rd whilst Wyatt took 48 innings to score her maiden ODI 50. We cannot go back to the days of e.g. Gordon, Lamb and the two Smiths being discarded after a few games.

2. To commence the reset, start with the only truly world-class player we have – Nat Sciver-Brunt – who needs to be asked to take the ODI captaincy until after the October World Cup. A separate T20 captain should be appointed.

2. There needs to be a volte face in selection criteria. Chris Guest, head coach of the Under-19s, recently observed in a Cricketer article that “if you’ve got someone who is outstanding within their skill and can’t field as well as someone who is less good within their skill but can field brilliantly, the skill still takes precedent at the moment.”

Numerous games turn on moments of fielding brilliance but England have only one exceptional fielder – Wyatt-Hodge – whilst most of the other centrally-contracted players are not international-standard fielders; several to the point where it could be posited that their mistakes and lapses in the field outweigh any ‘delta’ skill in their principal discipline over their nearest rival.

A stunning catch or a sharp run-out is more likely to impact a result than having a fractionally-worse ER or a slightly-lower batting average/ Strike Rate. Hence this prevailing attitude needs to be reversed.

Going forward players need to know that they won’t be selected unless they are (or have the potential to rapidly become) world-class fielders.

In the last article, I proposed a new-look T20 squad and promised my ODI squad would follow. Given the short timeframe I’ve proposed a transitional squad to participate in the October World Cup plus possible contenders for each slot. For ease of reference, I’ve also included my (slightly modified) T20 squad for next summer’s World Cup.

Note: Ecclestone’s omission was explained in my previous article.

Amy Jones’ recent ODI batting form has been good. However, a keeper’s role goes beyond catching and stumping; a great keeper additionally covers a huge area behind the stumps, intercepts all incoming throws to make them look good, manages fielding angles for their captain and acts as the vocal drumbeat of the team. Jones doesn’t do any of these things well and hence October’s World Cup should be her swansong.

I’m assuming that Bryce, like Gordon before her, can be persuaded to swap allegiances if adequately incentivised. If not, Heath has just a few months to seize her chance. (If she doesn’t, Smale is breathing down her neck.)

In the last 18 months, Knight has turned herself into a versatile and creative T20 batter. (In the last 2 years her T20 average is 33.6 SR 129, before that her figures were average 28.3 SR 116.) This evolution warrants her inclusion as a specialist batter notwithstanding her decreasing agility in the field.

Capsey might need to replace Scrivens to provide a sixth bowling option. (N.B. Wyatt could extend her career if she returned to bowling. Admittedly, she hasn’t bowled in internationals since 2020 but her stats are decent and even a couple of overs per game would give a captain more options.) Regardless of when she enters the senior team, Perrin’s bowling needs to be encouraged. Australia’s men’s and women’s teams demonstrate the advantages of having lots of batters who can bowl a few overs.

By Andy Frombolton

Dedicated Eurovision fans will, of course, recognise the opening lines of the UK’s second-placed 1977 entry which perfectly sum up England’s current WAshes predicament.

But should anyone really be surprised at how badly the team has performed? Prompted by an observation by Melissa Story on the Storylines podcast regarding the difference between most England players’ performances against Australia and their performances against all other teams, I decided to delve into the data.

The results make for grim reading.

There are just 2 instances where a player’s batting performance against Australia is superior to their performances against all other teams: Dunkley in T20s and NS-B in ODIs. At the other end of the scale, Jones’s averages are 50% worse in both short formats. (Bouchier has obviously had a very tough first WAshes tour, but I don’t think these figures reflect her potential.)

On the bowling front, only Capsey (in ODIs, and based on a small data set) improves her stats against Australia. But the absolute stand-out figures are Ecclestone’s. If Ecclestone is the #1 bowler in both T20 and ODI formats according to the ICC (and similarly Glenn is the #6 T20 bowler) this neatly illustrates Mark Twain’s observation that there are three types of lie: lies, damn lies and statistics.

Jon Lewis is copping a lot of flak for the team’s performance – although his hands are constrained, firstly, because he’s obliged to pick any team primarily from the centrally-contracted squad (otherwise why have they got contracts?) and, secondly, there aren’t many oven-ready replacements available.

We need to be honest. This cohort has repeatedly demonstrated the zenith of its capabilities i.e. it can beat most opposition (but, to honest, so could the top 3 regional/Tier 1 teams), but against Australia and in T20 and ODI World Cups (and the Commonwealth Games) they have repeatedly fallen short.

No one calling for Lewis to lose his job has explained how anyone else could extract better performances in these circumstances.

At some point soon, therefore, we need to move on from many of the current squad. But timing will always be an issue. Should it be now after the WAshes – with the (potentially-increased) risk of an early exit from this October’s World Cup? Or before the 2026 T20 World Cup (being held here in England). Because we haven’t prepared adequately for the next generation, what should have been a phased transition might need to be a cull. 

So, what’s the answer? For that, I’ll turn to the next two lines of the referenced Eurovision song: “Remedy? Why don’t we rub it out and start it again?”

In the business world when answers and solutions are hard to identify, a proven technique is to define the desired end state and then work backwards to the status quo. Applying this methodology…

1. The ECB announce the goal is to win the 2026 T20 World Cup in England. (Or Olympic Gold in 2028?)

Fans will accept hiccups along the way if they know what the goal is and understand why changes are being made.

2. The ECB should confirm its confidence in Jon Lewis as coach.  Much fun has been made of one poorly-phrased comment, but he’s a great coach, inspires loyalty and, frankly, has done well with the situation he inherited.

3. Identify the players to deliver this goal – and back them.

Not picking centrally-contracted players would obviously attract criticism, and the ECB should learn from this and reduce the number of central contracts awarded for the next few years. It would be better to award a small number of central contracts to a core of players with proven credentials, plus development contracts to a larger group.

We simply won’t win a World Cup until our fielding improves, and consequently (unless an individual is truly world class in one other discipline) they shouldn’t be picked unless their fielding meets international standards. (In domestic cricket, Katie George and Alice Monaghan routinely demonstrate what’s possible.)

Here’s my T20 team:

1. K Bryce (I’m assuming cash triumphs over loyalty to country) or Seren Smale (if not)
2. M Bouchier (captain)
3. D Perrin
4. B Heath (wk)
5. NS-B 
6. A Capsey (but only if she bowls more – if not, Wyatt-Hodge)
7. F Kemp 
8. D Gibson / C Dean (depends if wicket is turning)
9. R MacDonald-Gay
10. H Baker / D Gregory (whoever develops best in next season)
11. M Gaur / L Filer

Yes, I know I’ve omitted S Ecclestone. Firstly, I refer you back to her stats. In addition, her batting simply hasn’t developed and her fielding is poor (although she openly remonstrates with fielders who drop catches off her bowling). In the long term, there are other options who would have a more positive impact on team morale.

(I’ll propose my ODI team in my next article. But as a taster, it will feature several different personnel and a split captaincy.)

4. An A squad comprising these players needs to be established within the next few weeks, thereby these players know they are potentially seen as part of England’s future plans. 

5. Until we play slow/spin better we will never win consistently. This A squad therefore needs to go on a long tour to the Indian subcontinent / Sri Lanka this Spring (and next spring), and play tens of games against (men’s) teams. I know not everyone likes this idea, but realistically it is the only way to ensure high quality opposition. (You don’t improve by playing weaker teams.)

6. The A team should also play several games against visiting international opponents (also giving visitors the opportunity to test their fringe players).

7. AND finally, there needs to be a series of England vs England A games in the early season allowing the challengers to demonstrate why they should be picked for England and the incumbents to prove they deserve their places.

By Andy Frombolton

How often have you gone back to a restaurant where you had a bad meal? Or watched the second episode of a TV series if you didn’t enjoy the first one? The brutal fact is that you only get one chance to make a first impression and the key to attracting (and thereafter retaining) new customers is to prioritise quality control over everything else.

Hence the biggest threat to the growth of women’s cricket is if the initial experiences of potential fans are underwhelming. 

This is not to ignore nor belittle the huge positives of the past 5 years: significant investment; greatly improved media coverage; and rapidly-rising standards. All helped by a tailwind of goodwill and a collective desire to address historic and systemic inequities.

But at some point, all products must be able to stand on their own two feet. No sport has an innate right to exist, or to be supported, or for its participants to be remunerated. Reward ultimately must be linked to popularity and the willingness of followers and advertisers to pay for access. 

However, shielded from the commercial realities of having to ensure earned revenue exceeds costs, this simple truth is ignored by those running English women’s cricket whose preference is for catchy headlines and good optics. In the short term, it’s easy to proclaim every new initiative as Success or Progress. But that’s not the same as developing a sustainable, high-quality product.

1. Let’s start at the top – the national team. They’re a good team – but not nearly as good as they should be for all the money and resource spent in the last few years.

Looking first at the batting, the only new talent to have emerged in the past 5 years who has consistently delivered is Bouchier. Dunkley is reminiscent of Hick in the men’s game – too good for county cricket but possessed of a flawed technique and whose fielding and (abandoned) bowling aren’t good enough at international level. Capsey appears to have been similarly exposed. In the keeping department, next-off-the-rank Heath has been given virtually no chances to demonstrate that she could step up to the role and hence we remain one broken finger away from having to deploy a ‘stopper’ who can bat or a keeper who can’t bat. With respect to bowling talent England have good first-choice reserves but there’s still something wrong with the set-up when the selectors deem four 18-year-olds (Kemp, Gaur, Baker and MacDonald-Gay) to be better than anyone produced by the regional system in the past 6 years.    

There is however a much bigger problem than how good the England team is – and that’s how bad most of the international opposition is. With the exception of Australia and India, the rest are no better than a typical regional/Tier 1 team and consequently many international games are terrible mismatches. That England additionally so often choose to bowl first against weak opponents (thereby denying fans the chance of at least seeing a good batting display before our bowling attack invariably works its way through the opposition) shows a complete disregard for the spectator experience. Which brings us back to ‘quality control’. 

If we want better opposition (and hence a better showpiece product), it’s clear that England (and Australia) need to think far more holistically. The ECB should run (and pay for) a scheme under which 10-15 players from each of the West Indies, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka play a full season of cricket in England. The top talent should be assigned to Tier 1 counties with the rest spread across Tier 2 and 3 counties and also matched with a local club which is suitably incentivised to provide them with regular mid-week and weekend matches in (“men’s”) leagues and ideally women’s premier league games too. 

The cost? With vision and creativity, this shouldn’t cost more than £20,000 per player – or £1.5m (or, put another way, roughly the ECB’s payment for one Tier 1 team). Ideally, the benefitting countries would be required to provide a reciprocal scheme for the best English players (providing a far better skills and life experience than a cosy few months in New Zealand which seems to be the preferred route for so many).

2. England squad size. (N.B. I’d be the first to agree that there’s an excess of England men central contracts – but (i) that doesn’t make it right, and (ii) they might argue that they generate the funds thus wasted.) 

Central contracts are partly designed to ensure that players don’t play too much cricket. And in the men’s game, they are also essential to bind top players to England which is integral to maintaining the value of tv broadcasting rights and high ticket prices. 

But female contracted players play far fewer days of international cricket* and also far fewer non-international matches. Nor is an alternative career playing in various T20 and T10 leagues around the world viable.

[*Between Nov 1 2023 and Oct 31 2024 (the period covering the last women’s central contracts), the England men’s and women’s team played roughly the same number of T20s (17 men, 20 women) and ODIs (10, 9), but the men played 14 Tests compared to 1 for the women.]

Consider the total number of games played by 3 representative non-Test players from each squad during this period:

(As another comparator, James Vince played 13 county matches and 52 T20 matches in this period.)

So, neither the argument that you need to protect (most) female players from playing too much cricket nor that it’s essential that they are contractually bound to England holds for the women’s game.

This is not – before anyone gets too agitated – an argument for a smaller total pay pot for the women. My proposal is that there should be very few central contracts and that the money saved should be re-allocated to pay higher match fees.

3. Women cricketers need to play far more games.

This may sound curmudgeonly, but we shouldn’t be celebrating when an 18-year-old gets an international cap. The fact that someone who’s probably played less than 100 games in her life can seamlessly segue onto the international stage is ridiculous (genuine teenage sensations excepted). Not only does it reiterate the argument at point (1), but it’s a terrible indictment on the domestic set-up that after 5 years of professionalism there’s such a dearth of competition from players in their mid-20s. 

There seems to be a belief that natural talent + youthful exuberance is enough. But even a brief study of the stats tables (particularly the batting tables) shows the domination of older players. Why? Because skill and training can only take you so far. To dominate you also need match experience i.e. exposure to, and dealing with, numerous game situations. 

Adam Gilchrist, the Australian men’s keeper, came to England as a teenager and played 90 games in a season, returning home having vastly accelerated his development. Instead of every appearance being controlled by coaches and their game time limited (caps on overs for fast bowlers excepted), all female players, especially young players, need to play far more cricket.

And if you really want to get better you need to play against tough opponents. Most of the greats (Bates, Devine, Edwards, Greenway, Lanning) learnt their cricket playing “men’s” cricket. Fast bowlers bowl quicker, batters hit the ball harder, fielders stop more balls and throw faster. Modern Pathway players have far too little exposure to “men’s” cricket compared to their predecessors. This trend needs to be urgently reversed and participation encouraged.

4. Number of Tier 1 counties. As posited in a previous article most regional teams comprised too many ‘journeymen’ (the pool of pre-professional-era cricketers who were ‘known entities’) and academy graduates whose principal role was to make up the numbers. (Addressing one comment on that article – this is not to say those young players lack talent but TFCs are the inevitable consequence of playing in a team where paid professionals will expect to get the best opportunities.) 

And if there wasn’t enough talent to justify 80 professional contracts, then expanding the number of contracted players to 120 (or 130+ given Yorkshire’s advance recruitment) was obviously going to exasperate the gap between the teams with the best recruiting strategies and those with the worst. The trickle-feed squad announcements from the Tier 1 counties has confirmed this fear – from what we know (and, equally importantly, from the lack of announcements from some counties) it’s fairly clear that at least 3 of the Tier 1 teams are going to struggle to win many games. Quality control, anyone?

An honest assessment of the talent pool should have seen the ECB launch this new era with just 6 Tier 1 counties to ensure a more even spread of available talent which could still have been sold as a ‘positive’ (90 full-time professionals). 

But it’s obviously too late to reverse this decision, so the main lesson should be to not expand until it’s proven there’s enough talent to sustain more Tier 1 teams. “You can’t do that!” Why not? The ECB has repeatedly demonstrated that it doesn’t consider itself bound by the original Darwin tender document and hence should therefore be bold enough to reverse the pre-determined accession of Yorkshire and Glamorgan.

The ECB should then specify the conditions which would need to exist to warrant expanding the number of Tier 1 teams (in terms of spectator and tv numbers, sponsorship, advertising revenue, etc.) without predetermining the timescale. The number of Tier 1 teams should be dictated by demand, not by diktat. 

Will real-life match the enthusiastic projections about the growth of women’s sport? Will the women’s game nurture its own fans? Will most of the audience (as now) comprise fans of the men’s game (and, if so, what will happen when there are far more women’s games which thus compete for the limited time of these fans?) Can fans be converted to switch their primary allegiance to the woman’s game by different marketing, scheduling or pricing strategies?

It is surely far more sensible to expand in line with growing demand than grow too fast and risk having to cut the number of teams in the future if the predicted support doesn’t materialise?

And, regarding any future expansion of Tier 1, access must be on the basis of performance on the field, not a desire for geographic spread. If e.g. the south-east produces the next 2 teams to be elevated, the issue should be to understand how this success was achieved and seek to replicate it elsewhere, not to penalise best practice.

All Tier 1 teams should also run A teams comprising any professionals not playing Tier 1 cricket plus the best academy players. These teams should play against each other during the week but – see point 3 – also play in a “men’s” league at weekends. If they did, I’d predict most of the A team players would usurp the 1^st XI incumbents within 2 years.

5. Sub-Tier 1. Credit where it’s due. Here the ECB has basically got it right. There obviously has to be a pathway providing a smooth journey (both ‘up’ and ‘down’) from teenage county talent to professional. And the structure, together with the money going into – and the commensurate expectations of – the Tier 2 and Tier 3 counties appears well thought out.

Having only 6 Tier 1 counties would have permitted more money to go into this level where every pound spent benefits more players (Which is more likely to grow the talent pool and unearth the next England star? Betting on one full time professional or several semi-professionals?). Tier 1 expansion should not involve any decrease in Tier 2 or Tier 3 funding.

6. Finally, it’s not enough to create a pathway to professionalism. As more talent fights for a finite number of contracts there will be a commensurate increase in the number of players who either seek, but don’t reach, Tier 1 or whose tenure is short. Currently most of that talent, enthusiasm and investment is squandered (Challenge: Could any of the former Regional teams say what happened to all the players who passed through their academy but who didn’t win a regional contract in the past 5 years?)

Alongside a professional contract, all players should be encouraged to gain coaching or umpiring qualifications or offered further education opportunities which could take them into management, administration or data analysis. Better representation in these roles means that decisions about women’s cricket would increasingly be made by people who best understand it.

By Martin Saxon

Leigh, who last won the title in 2022, won their second Cheshire League title in three years, seeing off a challenge from last year’s winners Didsbury, who finished 12 points behind; and Nantwich, who were a further eight adrift. Both of the challenger clubs at least had the consolation of winning a senior T20 trophy during the year.

We’ll never know what might have happened had there not been three washed out matches between the top three during the year. This included a cancellation of the potential winner takes all final match between Leigh and Didsbury.

There has now only been one occasion in the last 14 years where a club has retained the league championship.

Leigh’s star players included Kirsten Smith with the bat and Sophie Heaton with the ball, but it’s highly likely that they wouldn’t have claimed top spot without the close season acquisition of Ellie Mason, who hit 672 runs at an average of 112 and added 18 wickets at 17 apiece for good measure. 

Didsbury’s Pooja Singh was the leading wicket taker with 22.

In the early weeks of the season, it seemed that newly promoted Lindow might be strong challengers, but they eventually faded to finish fourth. Their opener Heidi Cheadle finished as the top run scorer in Division 1 with 674, two more than Mason’s final total.

Four times title winners Appleton drop out of the top flight for the first time after a difficult season, and will be replaced by Leyland. After two third placed finishes in 2022 and 2023, Leyland stormed to the Division 2 title, ending with a 100 percent record, while all of their potential challengers lost at least three matches.The only other divisional winners with an unblemished record were Elworth in Division 5 South and Romiley in Division 5 East.

This is the final list of winners and runners-up across the CWCL competitions.