Criteria for Defining Women's First-Class Matches

Before control of the women’s game passed to the ICC in April 2005, the concept of ‘women’s first-class cricket’ had little meaning, and no attempt had been made by any recognised body to establish criteria to use in deciding whether or not particular women’s matches should, or should not, be classified as first-class. As with men’s matches before the ICC defined [men’s] first-class matches in 1948, it therefore fell to others to establish criteria for this purpose. The matchlist now adopted by the ACS was drawn up by Peter Griffiths and Philip Bailey, and the criteria used in this exercise were as follows:

To qualify as a first-class match, it should

1. be scheduled for a minimum of two days
2. be scheduled to be played as a two-innings match
3. be between teams of a status in the women’s game equivalent top that of men’s first-class teams, or of comparable importance in the women’s game
4. be played between teams of a country or region that at the time of the match was either a full member of ICC or its predecessor IWCC, or else was recognised by ICC or IWCC as being eligible to play women’s Test matches
5. be played with the sanction of the governing body of women’s cricket in the country concerned.

After April 2005, the definition of women’s first-class matches became subject to the criteria laid down by the ICC in its Classification of Official Cricket. These criteria now applied equally to men’s and women’s cricket. The key provisions are currently expressed as follows:

First-class matches are those men’s and women’s matches of two innings per side and of three or more days’ duration between two teams of eleven players played on natural turf pitches and substantially conforming to ICC standard playing conditions.