Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

4 Foreword by Alison Mitchell When I peered out between the curtains of my hotel room window opposite Lord’s on the morning of Sunday 23rd July 2017, I looked out over Wellington Road and saw a middle-aged gentleman in an egg and bacon striped blazer scurrying towards the Grace Gates. It was 7am and a queue had already formed. My heart sang. I did a little internal fist pump because it was no ordinary match being played at Lord’s that day. It was a match where nobody was quite sure how many spectators would turn up. For decades, the players had been watched mainly by family and friends. They had been told the game was a sell-out but no one was quite ready to believe it was true. The moment I saw that queue outside Lord’s, I believed. It was going to be full for the final of the 2017 Women’s World Cup. Lord’s! 26,500 paying spectators to watch a women’s cricket match! It had never happened before in the UK - and indeed only once around the world in modern times had crowd numbers been bettered, and that was when the then-Sports Minister of India bussed in coach loads of spectators to Eden Gardens for the Women’s World Cup Final of 1997 (never mind that he forgot to arrange buses to get them all home again afterwards). That was more like a publicity stunt. This was different. Men, women and families had all chosen to buy a ticket to be there. We were in for a very special day, and so it transpired, particularly when England lifted the trophy in front of not only the crowd at Lord’s, but a TV audience of nearly 20 million in India alone. Whether England had won or not though, the sense of occasion in the build-up and the thrill of the unfolding drama meant the day, for me personally, was a career-high. It will remain up there with any of the major sporting occasions I have been fortunate enough to cover, such as the 2005 men’s Ashes and the crazy Trafalgar Square parade that ensued, and the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. The overwhelming sense, above all others, was that of being part of history; part of a new movement almost. Indeed, all those I have since met who were there on that day felt they were part of something: a seminal moment for the sport of cricket. But how did women’s cricket get to this point? We have recently witnessed a phenomenal rise of the sport, not just in spectator numbers, but in the number of women and girls picking up bats and balls for the first time and emulating the feats of their inspirational national team. But in England this growth is not unprecedented: it was also experienced in the interwar years. It was these women, the pioneer generation, who first established cricket as a game for women. In the face of an often apathetic, often hostile public, these women stood steadfast and fought for the recognition they deserved. This long-overdue study tells their story comprehensively for