Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

60 ‘Too much emphasis on personal comfort’ further cricket playing, not all leisure was discouraged. The idea of a ‘compassionate marriage’ gained traction in the interwar years, especially among the middle classes, and stressed the benefits of home-based family leisure. Listening to the wireless or playing card and board games were popular group activities for all ages, and by 1937 almost 80% of households owned a radio. The onus was on the wife and mother to stimulate wholesome activities that their husbands would find entertaining, as most men did not curb their leisure time after having children. 9 Cricketers therefore made no obvious challenge to the prevailing domestic ideal: marriage usually resulted in players hanging up their boots, and turning on the radio. The importance of appearing to support women’s domestication held greater significance after the First World War due to a renewed emphasis on women returning to the home and their wifely duties. Cricketers needed to appear to respect this ideal, but also did not wish the game to degenerate into a fairground of flirtation and triviality. Unlike other physical pastimes, such as dancing, bathing and tennis, administrators for both organising bodies rejected outright the notion cricket was played to attract the opposite sex. Novelty mixed-sex matches were staged occasionally in the late-Victorian and Edwardian periods, usually occurring as part of summer fêtes, holiday fun or charitable ventures. Women’s athleticism was lightly mocked in these events by having men bat left-handed, with broomsticks or in fancy dress. The Association and the English Federation both publicly banned mixed- sex matches to cloak women’s cricket with a veneer of seriousness and authenticity. They took aim at popular newspapers like the Sunday Chronicle for printing images of women playing in bathing suits on the beach. 10 By segregating each gender, they also hoped to appease players fearing a challenge to men’s cricket and establish a ‘separate but equal’ Staff at the Cadbury’s factory in Bournville stage a ‘Ladies vs Office Men’ novelty game in 1900. (Cadbury archive, Mondelēz International)