The first time my PhD supervisor read a draft of my thesis she highlighted the following quote, from Womenâs Cricket magazineâs article on âCourtesiesâ in 1954:
âIf the backing-up batsman leaves his crease before you bowl, it is quite legal to run him out, but it is only sporting to warn him the first time.â
âInteresting choice of language,â she noted. âWhy batsman?â
The debate over the choice of language in cricket has recently raised its head again on Twitter, after the commentators at the Womenâs World Cup Qualifiers in Colombo queried use of the term âbatsmanâ in the womenâs game:
Snehal Pradhanâs view, eloquently expressed in this piece for Wisden India, is that use of the term âbatsmanâ might send a message to young girls that cricket is really a manâs sport, and ensure their continued exclusion.
Iâm not convinced – and Iâm as feminist as they come.
I, too, was initially surprised to find – when I started researching the history of the womenâs game almost a decade ago – that the language used by the English Womenâs Cricket Association, from its foundation in 1926, was riddled with references to âbatsmenâ (not to mention âthird manâ, âtwelfth manâ and âman of the matchâ). This was particularly interesting given that in so many other ways the WCA were the epitome of conservative femininity. They were obsessed with their appearance on the cricket field: there were rules about skirt length and sock colour, and caps were strictly forbidden. When there was a push for players to be able to wear trousers, as recently as the 1990s, there was enormous resistance to a move which would mean that female cricketers âno longer looked like womenâ.
And yet use of the word âbatsmanâ did not bother them in the least.
Why? Because – just as with the terms âthird manâ and âtwelfth manâ – it was seen as part of the terminology of the game. Former international Megan Lear summed it up pretty well in Pete Daviesâ book on the 1997 World Cup:
âYou don’t call third man third woman, do you? It’s a fielding position, and it’s called third man, and a person with a bat in her hand’s a batsman.â
This was the approach adopted by the WCA in the 1920s; and since then female players have in almost all cases referred to themselves as âbatsmenâ, indiscriminately using words that – to the casual observer – might look rather gender-specific.
So where has this move towards using âbatterâ come from? The minutes of the International Womenâs Cricket Council tell an interesting story. The issue was first tabled for discussion at the 1985 IWCC meeting, held in Melbourne, and was debated as follows:
âAs the media is concerned with altering the cricketing terms for womenâs cricket to ‘batters’ etc, a determination by IWCC was requested. After discussion it was agreed that the conventional cricketing terms be retained (eg batsman, manager, 12th man).â
This is extremely telling. The point is that it was the media who insisted on trying to alter the terminology of the womenâs game from that of âbatsmanâ to âbatterâ. It was the media (and still apparently is the media!) who seem determined to pigeon-hole female cricketers into the âbatterâ box, somehow uncomfortable with the idea of labelling them as âbatsmenâ. âThe press,â the IWCC reported at their subsequent 1987 meeting in London, âstill finds difficulty in coming to terms with the present terminology.â
And yet the players themselves rejected this pigeon-holing by the media. To them, âbatsmanâ was the conventional cricketing term – so why should they not use it to describe themselves?
None of this is to deny that language matters. But, by taking up the term âbatsmanâ, the WCA were attempting to ensure that the word (just like actor, waiter and author) would become gender-neutral. In fact the WCA rather anticipated the issues that we seem to be dogged with at the moment: they recognised that trying to insert a word like âbatterâ into the cricketing lexicon would simply mark the womenâs game out as different and strange. Why overcomplicate things? Do we really want those commentating on the womenâs game to have to stumble over odd and intrusive new terminology?
Iâd rather just take my cue from the WCA founders and continue with the term weâve got.
In any case, given that weâve now been using the term âbatsmanâ to describe female cricketers for nearly a hundred years, as far as Iâm concerned the WCA have been successful: âbatsmanâ doesnât suggest a man to me, but any cricketer of either gender holding a bat. Perhaps what we really need to do is to educate the people who donât know any better about the fact that our sport has its own long and interesting history – and that throughout that history, none of womenâs cricketâs pioneers ever felt the need to call themselves âbattersâ. Thatâs what I always try and do, anyway, when asked – which I often am – whether itâs okay to use âbatsmanâ.
I guess if people want to use âbatterâ, then Iâm not going to try and stop them (although you will find short shrift with me if you try to use âbatswomanâ or âbatspersonâ, Iâm afraid). But the people who seem determined to use it – often journalists who pay little attention to the womenâs game generally – arenât those who it really affects.
If the players are okay with it⌠if the founders of our sport were okay with it⌠then âbatsmanâ is good enough for me.
CRICKETher 