This week we discuss the start of the Lottie Cup:
New kids on the block The Blaze continued their unbeaten 2023 season with a 5-wicket win against South East Stars in the opening round of the Charlotte Edwards Cup at Beckenham, thanks to a stolid 63 not out from no.4 Georgie Boyce.
Stars had scored an above-average 160, and when Nat Sciver-Brunt and Tammy Beaumont were dismissed in the 9th and 10th overs – sparking a Blaze collapse of four wickets for 22 runs – it looked like the home side were on course for a win.
Beaumont and Sciver-Brunt had both shown signs of brilliance: Sciver-Brunt’s six off Danielle Gregory thudded into the sight-screen, while Beaumont – perhaps as a signal of intent to the England selectors – chose to open up the innings, and pulled Ryana Macdonald-Gay for a maximum over midwicket in the third over.
But Sciver-Brunt was caught in the deep for 19. Eight balls later, and two runs short of her half-century, Beaumont fell to a brilliant diving catch by Bryony Smith at cover. Sarah Glenn, meanwhile, holed out to Alice Davidson-Richards in the deep for 4.
It was left to Boyce to bring home the bacon, hitting a series of well-placed boundaries and one sweet six smashed over the head of bowler Paige Scholfield, which gradually whittled the target down.
Boyce was dropped at cover in the 17th over, allowing her to bring up a 28-ball fifty. Meanwhile, her partner Nadine de Klerk (16* off 15) survived an edge through the hands of diving wicketkeeper Kira Chathli in the ante-penultimate over, as Stars felt the pressure.
With just two runs needed from the final over, bowled by Davidson-Richards, The Blaze reached their target with four balls to spare.
Earlier, on a blustery day at Beckenham, The Blaze had won the toss and chosen to bowl first. They were at full strength with Beaumont, Glenn and Sciver-Brunt – making her debut for the East Midlands region – all present and correct, while Stars did without Alice Capsey, sitting out as a precaution after a recent foot injury.
Bryony Smith played in customary fashion, smashing 14 runs off the first over from Grace Ballinger, before playing straight into the hands of Marie Kelly at long on in the second.
Tash Farrant, promoted to no.3, was trapped LBW trying to sweep left-armer Ballinger, while Scholfield was caught trying to go over the top, handing Sciver-Brunt her maiden Blaze wicket.
When Sophia Dunkley was bowled playing around a straight one from Glenn in the 7th, the Stars were 48 for 4 and looked in trouble.
But a 68-run partnership for the fifth wicket between Phoebe Franklin (53) and Kira Chathli (24) led the recovery, before a late flourish of 24 off 13 from Davidson-Richards propelled their total to 160 for 8.
It proved enough to make the game exciting, but not quite enough to seal a win.
On Women’s County T20 Finals Day, we continue our deep-dive into women’s domestic cricket:
By Andy Frombolton
How much should Claire Fahey (the reigning and six-times Real Tennis Champion) be paid? Or a netball player in the UK Super League? Or a badminton player ranked #40 in the world?
Few readers would be surprised to learn that neither Fahey nor the netballers earn very much whilst a badminton player with a good global ranking (#33-#50) might typically make just £37k; probably rationalising that these are relatively ‘minor’ sports (in terms of popularity) and that the financial rewards available to players would obviously therefore be commensurately modest.
Which provides the starting point for this article; no one has the right to be paid for playing sport.
In life there are essential public roles like doctors, teachers, soldiers, etc. and Society determines how many of each role are needed and how ‘valuable’ each is (salary) whilst legislation enshrines equality in terms of reward for equivalent jobs.
However, for private sector roles (which includes professional sports) Society doesn’t determine how many people are engaged in any particular activity or their salaries (except a minimum salary for employees) and it’s self-evident that:
No one would seek to argue that the examples cited at the start of the article are ‘unfair’ – a sports body cannot distribute money it doesn’t have and players choose to participate in full knowledge of the likely rewards. Yet for more popular sports such as football, cricket and rugby much current debate about how much female sports players are (or ‘should be’) paid chooses to ignore these basic business principles and instead seeks to theorise ‘what constitutes a fair salary?’ as if this figure is independent of the revenue their sport generates.
Ignoring government grants, any sport has four possible revenue streams:
Hence the number of fans, their willingness to pay to watch the sport, and how attractive they are to advertisers and/or sponsors determines the amount of money coming into a sport and thereby establishes a cap on how much can be spent on sustaining and growing the sport (including wages for staff and players).
Premier League football is a pure manifestation of this model, albeit one which benefits massively from being an established product with a large fanbase which is attractive to certain advertisers / sponsors and whose willingness to pay is well-understood. The cricket WPL utilises the same model, although it differs in that the sums involved can only be justified on the expectation of a significant increase in the fan base and that this fan base can be monetised. The WPL investors and sponsors are thus taking significant risks regarding both the potential market and the willingness of fans to pay for a product which has hitherto been free (or very cheap). But in both cases the same fundamental business principle applies – (over time, in the case of the WPL) revenue must exceed outgoings.
Looking to examples in our everyday lives, no one would argue, for example, that a successful restaurant should cross-subsidise a less popular one and we readily accept that customers decide which establishments prosper and which fail. Similarly, we don’t expect all bands or comedians to be equally popular – fans will determine who does well. At the same time however, we might also recognise that some groups of people are over-represented in some sectors or that there are barriers to entry which means some groups are under-represented, and any just Society would want to ensure that under-represented or disadvantaged groups have the same chances to succeed. This isn’t only fair-minded, the consumer benefits too. Who wouldn’t want wider choice, more variety, new offerings? But critically the objective of any such targeted intervention cannot be ‘equality of outcome’ but ‘equality of opportunity’. Provided everyone has the same chance to be e.g., an actor or an entrepreneur then the market must ultimately be free to assign a value to people’s efforts; some restaurants will be more popular than others (not necessarily based on the quality of the food) and being a good actor doesn’t guarantee that your play will sell out if the audience prefer (based on criteria which they alone decide) to spend their money elsewhere.
Cricket is rightly concerned about ‘equality of opportunity’. If women (or e.g., some ethnic groups or people living in certain areas) haven’t previously felt that cricket was a game for them then all cricket fans should want to address this whether their motivation is acknowledging historical societal injustices, inclusion or simply wanting to maximise the number of people who enjoy the sport (playing or supporting). Regarding this final point, when there are so many activities competing for people’s time and money and the viability of many small clubs is in doubt, cricket’s survival (as both a spectator and player sport) depends in its ability to both maintain and expand its fan base.
Fans of women’s cricket, myself included, were genuinely excited by the recent WPL auctions and the potential for the best players in the world to earn serious amounts of money, but it also prompted me to question some of the arguments deployed regarding pay in the women’s game. Surely, it’s disingenuous to approve when the free market delivers an outcome I like (such as the WPL), but to argue that fundamental business principles (i.e., pay should be linked to revenue generated) aren’t relevant when they produce outcomes which I don’t?
I anticipate that some readers are ready to accuse me of positing that women players don’t deserve to be paid the same as the men or that the women’s game isn’t the ‘equal’ of the men’s game, but they should note that this article hasn’t made any reference to salaries in the men’s game or hypothesised what a fair salary might be. So far, this article has simply put forward 2 criteria for reward in any sport: firstly, that no one can expect to be paid for playing a sport unless there’s a fan base to fund them (whether directly or indirectly); and, secondly, provided that everyone has the same ‘equality of opportunity’, that the free market should subsequently determine their level of reward.
Whether you feel positive or negative at this point may well depend on the opportunities you see for the women’s game. If you view the potential fanbase for women’s cricket and the scope for revenue generation to be limited, regardless of how high the standard is or how well it’s marketed and sold, then you may not like the outcome of applying these two criteria. But, if you don’t accept that reward should be linked to popularity and revenue generation, then how do you rationalise (and accept) the differing rewards accruing to today’s top women cricketers compared to the Real Tennis world champion or a UK netballer or a top badminton player?
Alternatively, you might, like me (and, more importantly, people like the WPL franchise holders, media companies and sponsors), envisage a future where women’s cricket can develop a large fan base which is willing to pay to watch the support and which is attractive to advertisers and sponsors.
What would that take? Fundamentally it would require the women’s game to have complete financial and marketing independence – with all the associated risks and opportunities. Are the current administrators willing to accept autonomy with its corollary of accountability? At one stroke, this would serve to end all debate about how the women’s game is currently promoted and its share of co-mingled revenue. It would be for this women’s administrative body to decide the structure of the game, which formats were played, the scheduling of matches and how the game was promoted. It should also have the right to strike separate deals with broadcasters and sponsors. (The ICC is already committed to selling the rights to women’s tournaments separately, initially just in India.) The competence of this board and the quality of its decisions would solely determine the game’s ability to generate and maximise its revenue. (One point of clarification, I’m only talking about pay and reward in the professional game. Given the wider and indivisible benefits to cricket of having more people playing cricket identified earlier in this article, ‘the men’s game’ should continue funding all women’s age group and county cricket.)
Secondly, any cross reference to men’s pay would be rendered irrelevant. The women’s sport would be a stand-alone business and, within its budget, the various woman’s administrative bodies would have complete freedom to decide the structure of the game including the number of professionals and their salaries.
Instead of aping the format of the men’s competitions, they could experiment to find out what works for women’s cricket. Is there demand for weekends / festivals of women’s cricket e.g., with all 8 UK regional teams playing at one venue over the course of a weekend or a few days? What would be the market for playing two T20 internationals in a single day? Could an Anzac team or an International Development team be invited to play in the CEC or RHF (with reciprocation for player development)?
Similarly, it would a decision solely for the women’s board if, for instance, they wanted to play more Tests. Marketed differently these games might be extremely popular but, conversely, if these games needed to be subsidised (just as the men’s game subsidises their 50 over competition and even county cricket) this decision would have a direct and transparent impact on the funds available for other activities.
Perhaps a media outlet which doesn’t currently show cricket (e.g., Facebook or Amazon) might seek the rights? Or new sponsors and advertisers might emerge who value the potentially-different demographics of the fan base? One of the manufacturers of cricket equipment might see an opportunity to take a large share of the growing women’s market. Perhaps the women’s administrators or players might decide to take an ethical stand regarding e.g., betting sponsors? Could a co-operative structure work whereby players owned tournaments and kept all the profits?
Notwithstanding the day-to-day separation of the women’s and men’s games, there’d remain both a need and a benefit for men’s and women’s administrative bodies to work closely together on issues of synergistic or mutual concern. Arrangements like double-headers should still continue; the hosts benefitting from spectators spending more time at the ground and the women’s game enjoying the greater exposure (although there’d need to be data-driven discussions regarding sharing of ticket receipts – something which, to date, the ECB has shown no desire to empirically quantify).
Obviously, there’d need to be a transition period for the women’s game to prepare for the new arrangements (and for extant media deals to expire), but the fundamental question is ‘does the women’s game want to assume responsibility for its destiny?’
The opportunity exists to create a business model which provides excellent salaries for professional players and which can sustain the necessary pyramid of talent. Women’s sport shouldn’t be sold or marketed as an hors d’oeuvre for the ‘main’ (male) event or ‘double the airtime’ for a few dollars more. This devalues the sport and the players whilst entrenching the conditions for irritation and lingering resentment. (If budgets are squeezed in the future, the situation might arise where ‘the men’s game’ starts to question the equity of the current arrangements?) Surely, now is the time to devolve as much responsibility as possible to the male and female formats.
It is pure speculation what the end result would be. Done well, there is undoubtedly a scenario where regional professionals could be paid more and the top players considerably more. Conversely, it might transpire that the game cannot support the current structure and a different arrangement is required. But wouldn’t it better if the outcome was in the hands of a dedicated body whose only focus and ambition was for the success of women’s cricket?
This week:
The ongoing row between FIFA and the TV companies over the value of broadcast rights for the upcoming Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this summer (or this winter, if you are actually in Australia or New Zealand) is a watershed moment for women’s sport, and a dangerous one. But the real danger isn’t quite what everyone wants you to think it is.
In a nutshell, FIFA are threatening to withhold the TV rights to the Women’s World Cup from European broadcasters unless they pony-up significantly more cash, insisting that the rights are worth something much closer to what the TV companies pay for the men’s tournament. In a spectacular display of chutzpah, they are invoking equality to make their argument – suggesting that the TV companies are now the ones holding back the growth of women’s sport.
The broadcasters in return argue that they just don’t have any more money.
And the thing is… the broadcasters have a point.
The BBC in particular can’t just pop down to Cash Converters and magic-up more wonga – it can’t sell more ads, or put up subscriptions – its income is based on the license fee, which is currently frozen until 2024, at a time when inflation is running at well over 10%. Every penny it spends on buying the rights to the Women’s World Cup is a penny it can’t spend on other things… like… cricket.
ITV isn’t quite that constrained, but the emphasis is on “quite” – it would have to sell a lot of adverts (at some not-exactly-prime times, given the schedule of a tournament on the other side of the world) to justify paying more. Again, if it does, that’s probably money that is going to come from something else too.
So we’ve reached a crossroads – one where we must face an important question. But what is that question?
If you ask FIFA, the question is: Are the rights to the women’s tournament worth the same as the men’s?
But the real question is this: Are we going to take let FIFA blackmail us into taking yet more money from other sports (like… say… random example… cricket!) and giving it instead to the richest sport on the planet?
In short: Are we going to continue to let football eat everything?
And when you look at it like that, I think we probably know what the right answer is.
So how can we cut through and reach a solution?
We all (well… everyone reading this site, anyway) want more money for women’s sport, and FIFA do have a point that the rights for the men’s and women’s tournaments should be of equal value.
But as someone once said, there is no magic money tree! Increasingly, the only way to find more money for women’s sport is going to be to cut some of our spend on men’s sport.
In this particular case, the broadcasters have wayyyy overpaid for the rights to the (men’s) World Cup – an event that legally has to be shown on free-to-air TV – for far too long, and that needs to change. So the answer is for the BBC to offer FIFA more money for the Women’s World Cup – but only if they accept a corresponding deduction in the value of the men’s rights.
Long term, that is the only sustainable solution for a fair balance not only between men’s and women’s sport, but also between football and every other game on the planet.
The Blaze have defended their decision to play at Welbeck Cricket Club, after their match against Thunder was abandoned on Monday despite no rain falling all day, due to an unsafe pitch.
CRICKETher understands that the pitch had been used for a men’s club match on Saturday, and that play continued despite falling rain, meaning that the bowler’s run-ups were churned up and unusable by the time Monday’s regional fixture came around.
The umpires were forced to call off the fixture at 2.00pm, meaning that the points on offer were split equally between the two teams.
James Cutt, The Blaze’s Director of Cricket, told CRICKETher:
“While any matchday where we are not able to get onto the field of play is clearly frustrating, this has been a challenging summer nationwide in terms of the sheer amount of wet weather we have suffered – an issue which was only exacerbated by some poor localised weather over the weekend.
“With areas of the ground then failing to improve sufficiently on the day, we recognised, alongside the match officials, that conditions weren’t appropriate for a professional game of cricket, and that the risk to injury remained too high if we were to go ahead and play the game.
“The John Fretwell Centre has a strong recent history of staging professional cricket, with nine Nottinghamshire men’s fixtures staged there over the past eight years, so it’s a setup which is used to the demands of that level of the game.
“We’re really keen to ensure we take The Blaze around the East Midlands this summer, to ensure that this is a team which people across the region can invest their support in, and that we can inspire girls and boys from around the region to pick up a bat and ball.”
The ECB would be within their rights to penalise The Blaze for the incident. The Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy Playing Conditions state that the home team must ensure venues are suitable for play 72 hours prior to the scheduled fixture or arrange an alternative, and that “failure to comply with this… may result in the deduction of points from a Regional Host and the possible award of additional points to another Regional Host”.
Perhaps a greater concern is that this may not be a one-off. The expansion of the regional calendar this season means that a number of regional fixtures are now being played at club grounds. The Blaze are returning to Welbeck twice more this season; while Central Sparks played a “home” fixture against Southern Vipers at Wormsley Cricket Ground on Monday, despite this being within Buckinghamshire (home territory of the Vipers!) Is women’s regional cricket losing out in the battle for pitches to men’s club cricket, and is this acceptable in 2023?
It may have been the 1st of May, but no one had told the weatherman, who served up a morning of April showers at Wormsley as Central Sparks trudged towards a sub-par 183-9. But the sun came out to shine on the Vipers’ pursuit, as they survived a couple of wobbles to chase down their target with 3 wickets and the better part of 9 overs to spare.
Sent in by Vipers captain Georgia Adams, Sparks openers Eve Jones and Chloe Brewer were ready to get the game underway at 10:30 before a violent rain shower sent everyone rushing back to the thatched-roofed Wormsley pavilion as the covers were rushed on, delaying the start of play by twenty minutes.
With the match finally underway at around 10:50, Eve Jones played out a maiden to Lauren Bell’s first over, before Charlie Dean opened at the opposite end – a match-up likely intended for Jones, who Dean has got out twice in regionals. But it was Chloe Brewer who found herself heading back early, caught and bowled by Dean for a two-ball duck.
This brought Abbey Freeborn to the crease, who put on 56 with Jones on her way to a slightly tortuous 43 off 96 balls.
Jones herself was adjudged LBW to Georgia Elwiss for 34 in the 19th over. Replays suggested the decision was arguable, with the ball looking to be going down leg, but with no DRS in regional cricket, Jones had to go; and there was no doubt whatsoever about the dismissal of Davina Perrin two balls later – comprehensively bowled by Elwiss with middle stump pegged-back.
Freeborn continued in partnership with Ami Campbell, who led Sparks’ brightest phase of the game. An over from Elwiss went for 9, and one from Alice Monaghan for 10, putting Sparks 88-3 at the half-way mark, still with a shout of passing 200 if they maintained their pace; but they couldn’t do so, and Freeborn ultimately became the first of Georgia Adams’ 4 victims in the 35th over.
Katie George did her best to liven things up in a brief cameo, which included her and Campbell sending a rare Danni Wyatt over for 15. But even though George’s 23 off 28 represented by far the best strike rate of the Sparks innings, it was still only 82, and once she was dismissed the wheels really started to rattle as Sparks subsided to 183-9, some way short of a par total these days in domestic cricket, albeit in conditions which were not ideal.
Sparks’ only hope was to bowl Vipers out, and they got off to the perfect start – Grace Potts catching McCaughan for 0 off Emily Arlott in the opening over. Having made quick runs at the back end of the Vipers innings on Saturday, Elwiss found herself in very different territory trying to navigate the powerplay with Maia Bouchier. Elwiss defended and defended, never really looking comfortable against the pace of Arlott or Potts, and was next out in the 9th over for 6 off 28 balls, with Vipers 13-2 off the first 9 overs.
A 9-run 10th over made the powerplay look slightly better, but at 22-2 Vipers were still far short of where Sparks had been at the same stage – 30-1.
Danni Wyatt came and went, unable to resist a classic Issy Wong full toss – planting it into the hands of Chloe Brewer – and Bouchier followed shortly afterwards for 25 off 39 balls. At 46-4 Vipers did not look comfortable, and a repeat of their season-opening loss to Sunrisers could definitely have been on the cards.
But a 115 run partnership between Georgia Adams (50) and Charlie Dean (42) turned the tide, taking them to within touching distance of the target at 161. It wasn’t champagne cricket… it wasn’t even prosecco cricket… but it was effective cricket, as Adams and Dean dialled down the risk meter to get the job done.
The dismissals of Adams and Dean in consecutive overs gave the Sparks a bit of hope, but Emily Windsor (10) and Rhianna Southby (8 off 7 – the only innings in the game with a strike rate of 100) carried Vipers home for their second win of the bank holiday weekend.
This week:
Southern Vipers bounced back in style after their humiliation at the hands of Sunrisers last week, with an emphatic 158-run win against South East Stars at Beckenham.
On what felt like the first sunny day of the year, Georgia Adams chose to bat first; and Vipers vindicated that decision by putting 287 on the board.
After Maia Bouchier and Ella McCaughan shared a century opening stand, a run-a-ball half-century from Georgia Elwiss at no.4 helped them finish well.
However, Beckenham is renowned for being a decent batting wicket, and the boundary rope was (inexplicably) 10 yards shorter than usual for this game. Stars therefore emerged after the innings break audibly confident about their chances.
Nobody was more confident than Capsey, who looked (as ever) a cut above the rest. She helped Stars to 25 for 0 in the first four overs, and played the shot of the day – a beautiful cover drive.
But the next two overs from Lauren Bell decimated the Stars. Firstly, and most crucially, she bowled Capsey with one which nipped back in to take out her off stump. The next ball, Ryana MacDonald-Gay was adjudged LBW.
Bryony Smith saw off the first hat-trick ball; but then created a chance for a second, as Bell took another two-in-two in her following over. Smith fell to an excellent low catch by Charlie Dean at cover, before Alice Davidson-Richards wafted at one outside off stump and Bouchier snaffled it at slip.
Fresh from scoring her first century in a decade against Thunder last weekend, Paige Scholfield again looked the most assured of the Stars batters, striking the ball cleanly on the way to 31 off 63 balls.
But she was bowled going down on one knee trying to slog Adams in the 27th, and Stars gradually succumbed to their fate – all out for 129 in the 37th over.
Oddly, Stars had earlier chosen not to open the bowling with England’s Freya Davies, instead opting for the combination of Tash Farrant and Phoebe Franklin.
That allowed Bouchier and McCaughan to find their feet and build a platform, which Elwiss and Adams (31) built on with a 76-run partnership for the 4th wicket.
Stars ultimately used a mammoth 9 bowlers, mostly in vain, as Vipers enjoyed a day of regaining their mojo.
CRICKETher 