Women’s team success inspires younger generation to take up bat and ball, making it one of the fastest growing team sports for female players

The ball zips across the turf and pops over the boundary rope. A 13-year-old girl’s fist bumps that of her batting partner to celebrate reaching 50 runs among the cherry blossom and dry stone walls of a cricket ground in Wiltshire.

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It is the sort of cheerful scene that will be repeated across the UK this summer as an increasing number of girls take up a game that was once the preserve of their brothers and fathers.

Cricket is one of the fastest growing team sports for girls in Britain. Over the past 15 years the number of clubs offering cricket to girls and women has increased from fewer than 100 to more than 600. All 39 county cricket boards will field girls teams in age groups from under-11 to under-17 this season.

Since 2005 a million girls in more than 7,000 state schools have been given access to the sport via a scheme called Chance to Shine, and many hundreds of private schools are promoting cricket as a key summer sport.

A survey of grassroots participation by the England and Wales Cricket Board of grassroots participation revealed that more than 59,000 women and girls over the age of 14 played cricket in 2014.

But that figure already feels out of date to those involved in the game: cricket clubs this season are reporting a huge increase in the number of girls signing up. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of girls under the age of 14 can be added to the total.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nearly 60,000 women and girls over the age of 14 played cricket in 2014. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt

The change has been rapid. “I was desperate to play at school but I just didn’t have the chance,” said Sarah Ginn, 34, who now coaches under-13 and under-17 girls in Warwickshire. “I had to play rounders or tennis. They let me play sometimes when they were short but it was very frustrating.”

She finally took up the game at university and after graduating set up women’s and girls’ teams in south Wales. At first she encountered some scepticism and patronising attitudes. But that changed when clubs realised the female players were serious. “It’s much more positive now.”

Cricket, Ginn argues, is a brilliant game for girls. The nature of the sport – with, ideally, plenty of time off while your side is batting – means it is sociable. The need to field together as a unit makes for great camaraderie. “And you don’t just have to play hard-ball cricket. There are chances to play with a softer ball and in various formats.”

It helps that the England team, which turned professional last year, is doing well. It is the current holder of the women’s Ashes and has high hopes of retaining the trophy when the Australians tour England this summer. A further plus point is that Sky Sports will screen every ball of the 2015 Ashes series.

Kate Cross, a 23-year-old England women’s team fast bowler and Ashes winner, grew up playing with the boys and at Heywood Cricket Club in Lancashire. She relished the challenge. “I started when I was eight. It suited me to play with the boys. You have to learn the hard way when someone is bowling at you fast or hitting it all over the place.” But she also accepts that many girls do better if they train and play away from the boys.

Cross made a bit of cricketing history in April when she became the first woman to play for the club in the highly competitive Central Lancashire League. She took three wickets – and would have had one more had one of those boys she grew up with, her brother Bobby, not dropped a catch off her bowling.

Kate Cross (@katecross16) One for the Cross family photo album. My brother dropping a catch off my bowling today. Pictures paint 1000 words! 🙈 pic.twitter.com/98SghMG5A6

Clare Connor, a former England women’s captain and now head of women’s cricket at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), said the plan was to “normalise” girls’ and women’s cricket. “Not all the girls want to muck in and play with the boys. We want to give girls the chance to play with girls and for that to be a normal part of the game.”



Some of the best girls’ teams are to be found in traditional cricketing hotbeds such as Yorkshire, Lancashire, Kent and Sussex. But other counties that do not have first class – top level – sides such as Devon and Berkshire have been quick to spot the potential in girls’ cricket and have developed excellent programmes.

There are challenges. The ECB plans to do much more to encourage more girls from Asian communities into the game – something the England men’s system is wrestling with despite the huge love of the sport in India, Pakistan and other south Asian countries. The Muslim Women’s Sports Association is among the organisations Connor’s team is planning to do more work with.

And Connor says there are still places that are resisting the revolution. “There are conservative attitudes in all sports but especially in sports like cricket that were perceived to be the domain of male teams. But you can’t just appeal to half the population. You have to promote the game to everyone.”