International Cricket Council which is famously also known as ICC handles the international tournaments for both men’s and women’s teams across the globe. There is no denying the fact that ICC is doing impressive work in the men’s section and the recently concluded T20 WorldCup was proof of that. We saw teams like Namibia and Scotland stepping their feet in one of the most fierce competitions which Australia ended up winning for the first time. We can talk about men’s cricket without a break but today we are here to talk about why Women’s cricket needs its own international council to look over it.
Right after International Women’s Day, ICC announced the expansion of women’s cricket events posts in the 2023 cycle. It’s perfect for all female cricketers as it looks like a dream comes true for them. But here comes the problem, there is nothing to promote cricket between international teams apart from these listed ICC events. Women have been playing cricket since 1745, which is eventually a very long time but they never got the importance they wanted from the start. Cricket has always been competitive whether it’s between men’s or women’s, as you can only get more people involved in a game when you take a step to have more matches.
Time for a History Lesson
It’s not like that we never had a separate women’s council. The International Women’s Cricket Council was formed in 1958 by the five founding nations that include Australia, England, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and South Africa. These five nations were collaborating with each other to organize international matches between themselves. It was a limiting factor but they always had the scope of adding more teams and it happened at the later stages.
The IWCC was not able to market cricket in sub-continent nations like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. where women were not able to show their talent because of the lack of matches. Another main reason was the lack of interest shown by the respective councils from different countries.
In 2005, IWCC was merged with the International Cricket Council to form one unified body to help manage and develop cricket. At the moment women’s cricket went beyond its traditional boundaries as the regional women’s world cup qualifying events were held across the world. But due to limited resources and funding, it was finally decided to merge the women’s international council with the ICC.
Reasons to Consider Women’s International Council
Less Exposure
Exposure and commercialization are an integral part of every sport even if it is cricket. We have seen more and more people getting interested in men’s cricket and that’s because ICC structured it that way. We have seen many events from time to time for men’s cricket but for women’s cricket, we have these limited ICC tournaments which look like a regulatory tournament after their takeover of the IWCC. This results in less exposure, less salaries, fewer media coverage for women’s cricket globally. Having a structured program that promotes equality is only possible when you have separate councils for both men’s and women’s cricket.
Another reason for less exposure to women’s cricket is that ICC is completely focused on Men’s cricket at the moment. There is nothing wrong with that as you have to look after the format that generates revenues in millions. But their ignorance of women’s cricket is taking it back to its initial stages. WBBL is surely a boost to women’s cricket but apart from Cricket Australia(CA), no other board is showing their interest in promoting Women’s Cricket. However, if there is a council that only promotes Women’s cricket then we can definitely give us the much-needed exposure to our women.
Not Much Importance
As mentioned earlier ICC’s main concern is to promote men’s cricket to a new level. But if their interest is to equally promote men’s and women’s cricket then we would not be having this discussion. Cricket needs to be promoted not only on the international level but also on the national level. According to the world’s leading wicket-taker in ODI’s, Jhulan Goswami once said she loves to play test cricket but we haven’t had many games under our belt.
It’s true this format needs mental toughness and patience from session to session, and if players are ready to show their resiliency then why not move ahead with more test cricket for women. This year team India played their only test against Australia. Well, the question does arise as like why there weren’t any more test matches just like men’s cricket. Apart from Australia and England who are playing The Ashes once a year, none other women’s team are interested in playing the longest version of the game. The reasons include less pay and fewer matches.
Recently, Roya Samim, a female cricketer from Afghanistan has expressed her sadness over the lack of support for women players in Afghanistan from the ICC. Samim shared, ” We all emailed the ICC but got no response from them. Why do they not respond to us, why do they not consider us, or even treat us that we don’t exist in the world? After the Taliban came into Kabul, we requested that (the ICC) please save all the girls, we are worried for our teammates. The Afghan Cricket Board (ACB) also said nothing, they said just: ‘Wait’,”
Because of the Taliban’s takeover over Afghanistan, there is no scope for women’s cricket in the country anymore and the ICC is not doing anything about it. Well, this is just an example as ICC can’t do much for the country but they can surely show their support to the women’s cricket team from Afghanistan.
A New Direction for Women’s Cricket
There is no hiding the fact that ICC is trying their best to promote women’s cricket all around but maybe they are not trying enough or may need a new direction to move on. Maybe we need a separate direction for women’s cricket because what worked in promoting men’s cricket over the years may not work for women’s cricket. Including more women in the council can be really helpful.
Endnotes
We are living in times where everything has become digital. People and especially little girls are getting interested in women’s cricket as players like Elysse Perry and Shefali Verma are the prime examples of it. It’s our point of view that creating a separate council for women would help the game be more established on both ends. Until next time, Goodbye!