The Women's Game: Not Fit For Purpose?

 

25/01

As England Women's car crash of an Ashes tour continues today, is this man in denial? 

What does this all say about the massive promotion and investment in the women's game at the moment? Are we on a learning curve, where we're actually still at the very bottom of where we need to get to be competitive?

21/01

Somerset County Cricket Club are delighted to be able to announce that more than 500 Women’s Memberships have been purchased since Membership went on sale.

2025 will see a professional Somerset women’s team take to the field for the first time and in this new era, we are offering Women’s cricket as part of a separate Membership package.

Cold Shoulders Woeful England Women not taking criticism well. 

14/01

ICC Did Nothing...

08/01

Three Tests Ashes? Beaumont says

Match officials for women’s Ashes series announced. .
PTG Editor.
Saturday, 4 January 2024.
PTG 4725-22679.

Kent Hannam has been confirmed as the match referee for the coming seven-match women’s Ashes series, three One Day Internationals, three Twenty20 Internationals, and a Test, and as previously reported, so have the females involved in Claire Polosak and Eloise Sheridan in on-field and TV roles, and Lisa McCabe in fourth umpire spots (PTG 4721-22662, 31 December 2024). Given McCabe is now on the International Cricket Council’s third-tier International Umpires Panel (IUP) (PTG 4723-22671, 2 January 2025), her appointments suggest Cricket Australia selectors may have questions about her abilities.


Meanwhile, five male umpires will also be involved, Shawn Craig being on-field in one of the ODIs, and the third umpire in another and the Test, Phillip Gillespie will be on-field on one of the ODIs and a T20I, Ben Treloar will be on-field and the third umpire once each in T20Is, Shared Patel the fourth umpire in both an ODI and a T20I, and Roberto Howard the fourth umpire in two T20Is. Craig and Gillespie are both male members of Australia’s IUP contingent.


Jan Howard and Staff Shaw will be the scorers for the Test in Melbourne, the ODIs in Sydney Darren Mattison and Adrian Tham, and the T20I there Tham and Toni Lorraine. The ODI in Melbourne has Georgie Dwyer, Wendy Moore and Chris Skyring scoring and in Hobart Nathan Bester and Steve Jewell, while the T20Is in Canberra have Pina Kidd and Rammanee Shivakumar, and Adelaide Mike Harper, Neil Ricketts and Ian Graham.

My women’s cricket predictions

Sonia Twigg

Breakthrough player: Seren Smale

Already on the fringes of the England squads, Seren Smale could be poised for a breakthrough year as England look to strengthen their squad depth. She was called up to the international squad for the first time for effectively a second-team tour of Ireland aged 19, and later as cover for the South Africa series. As one of the emerging players from the 2023 Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup, she was the third-highest run scorer of the 2024 Rachael Heyhoe Flint trophy and could push on in 2025.

Most important player: Nat Sciver-Brunt

For the past few years, England have turned to their senior players to deliver on the biggest stages and there is none more suited to the occasion than Nat Sciver-Brunt. With England taking on Australia in the Ashes and then travelling to India for the Women’s World Cup, Sciver-Brunt will be crucial for England’s chances in both of those, especially with the bat. Already among the highest-paid sportswomen in the country, Sciver-Brunt is one of the biggest stars of the growing global women’s game.

Women’s Ashes winner: Australia

England defied the odds in 2023 when they came back from losing the Test match to beat Australia in the white-ball series and draw the Ashes overall, but doing it down under will be a different story. Both sides have suffered setbacks in the preceding months, crashing out early of the Women’s T20 World Cup in Dubai. But with the prospect of the first day-night Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to cap off the tour, Australia will want to hold onto the urn they have held for the last decade, and with their squad depth they are best positioned to do so.

Women’s World Cup winner: Australia

You have to go back as far as 2000 to find a winner of a women’s World Cup not from either England or Australia, and it will be hard to look past the Australians again in 2025. Their all-conquering domination of the 50-over format was brought to an end by England in 2023. Prior to that Australia had not lost a bilateral one-day international series since 2013, but they will still go into the tournament as favourites. Hosts India will benefit from the home support, but will have to show that they have learnt from their collapse in 2017 which saw England win the title.

No debuts for Aussie female umpires during women’s Ashes, suggest reports. 

PTG Editor.
Tuesday, 31 December 2024.
PTG 4721-22662

A collation of reports received from around the country indicates to the surprise of no one, that Claire Polosak and Eloise Sheridan, by far Cricket Australia’s (CA) most experienced female umpires will, in addition to Kent Hannam as the match referee, feature in all seven matches in the coming women’s Ashes series: three One Day Internationals (ODI), three Twenty20 Internationals (T20I), and a single Test. Apart from Polosak and Sheridan, the only other female who is believed to have been assigned to those games is Lisa McCabe, but her role will be limited to fourth umpire spots in two of the ODIs and the Test, she having served in the latter role for the first time last February (PTG 4402-21395, 12 January 2024).

Polosak and Sheridan will both be on-field twice and the TV umpire once in both the ODI and T20I legs of the tour, and on-field together in what will be for each their third women’s Test; their last being together in Perth last February when McCabe was the fourth umpire.  Instead of pushing McCabe or other female umpires around Australia into TV or fourth umpire roles during the white ball part of the series is which no International Cricket Council neutral umpire will be working (PTG 4719-22654, 29 December 2024), CA is understood to have assigned the likes of male Contracted Umpire Panel members Shawn Craig, Roberto Howard, Sharad Patel and Ben Treloar to those matches.

CA is reported to have appointed McCabe as third umpire for the match between an Australian Governor General XI and England which will be played in Canberra prior to the white ball series proper getting underway.  For that fixture, CA has brought in Mary Waldron from South Australia and Claire Haysom of Victoria as the on-field umpires while Hannam will be the referee. 

11/12

PCA Business Futures  - read on Pravda

A free business grade laptop for 73 year old James Graham-Brown as one of the runners-up. Business Futures eh!

Can Marie diversify and produce a cap that will stay on Haseeb Hameed's head?

03/12

Pravda alliterates Craig Cumming new head coach of the Blaze

THE BLAZE'S FAILURE TO COMMIT

Pravda, Mr Newell, Mr Hunt and Ms Pursehouse all feel as supporters of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club that we should all also support The Blaze and if we don't then we are some kind of misogynistic dinosaur.

As part of the Women's cricket restructuring and the demise of the regional structure in favour the tiered county structure that we now have from 2025, Nottinghamshire was granted Tier 1 status. All the regional franchises, except one, have been dissolved and have taken on new County identities of sorts, with that exception being The Blaze. The Blaze are based at Trent Bridge, except when they are not, as it suits Trent Bridge and Nottinghamshire not to commit fully to hosting Tier 1 women's matches for every home fixture. So The Blaze remains an East Midland regional representative franchise, playing within a new County structure. Leicestershire and Derbyshire both have their own Tier 2 women's county teams but will also host The Blaze home fixtures, sometimes as part of a double header day, as The Blaze also do with the Outlaws at Trent Bridge.  So The Blaze are not Nottinghamshire as they are as much Derbyshire and Leicestershire as well, so why should any Nottingham, Derby or Leicester based supporter show them any allegiance?  This is the parochial East Midlands, where rivalries are old and are important.

Pravda's website has fixtures for both The Blaze and for Nottinghamshire Women, the latter having a handful of home fixtures over the season at grounds other than Trent Bridge but within the county borders.

Do The Blaze have to play all of their one day schedule at first class venues?

Trent Bridge admits that it is unable to commit to The Blaze fully because of the limited number of wickets on the square at HQ, but can't wickets be found at other grounds around the county to host The Blaze? Why can't The Blaze fully commit to Nottinghamshire and adopt the Nottinghamshire name, it might be the start of giving potential supporters something to identify with?

Fans of Welbeck need to heed the words of Mr Newell, where Welbeck CC have their own list of priorities for their ground and County cricket comes below hosting wedding receptions in that list, sadly. Other clubs will have their own priorities too.

Clearly what Nottinghamshire Cricket needs is a real alternative first class venue to Trent Bridge that lies within the county, much as Lancashire now have with the Farington ground, which I believe they took possession of last week. Perhaps it would have been cheaper to develop an alternative venue than it will be to double up facilities in a new Trent Bridge pavilion, if and when that project gets off the ground. Three months lost / behind schedule already Mr Hunt!

21/11

52 Double Headers

Will Outlaws be playing in Wolverhampton Wanderers' colours in the future?

When is home, home?

When is double header not a double header?

When is 4, 6?

Yes I do know what Pravda means but the graphic is being used to sell memberships at Trent Bridge and highlight the connection (that may exist) between Nottinghamshire CCC and (location denied) The Blaze franchise, if it is a franchise to be bought and sold and farmed-out to any place that will have 'em.

How is the Trent Bridge pavilion project progressing BTW?

20/11

Kent Unhappy

19/11

Tier 1 sides taking part in the Women's County Vitality Blast T20 include Birmingham Bears, Lancashire Thunder and The Blaze.

Is it time to admit that the The Blaze rebrand was a tad premature and should now be redundant. The Tier 1 and for that matter Tiers 2 and 3 sides are all being hailed as COUNTY sides now by the ECB media machine.

Is it that the The Blaze are finding it difficult to adopt Nottinghamshire as a home or is the reverse true in spite of all the hot air blustered by the club's CEO?