This is unironically great news. Like the Bollywood stars in the IPL, a big local celebrity can bring a lot of eyes to your sport.
The sad thing about English cricket is that it's so niche, particularly for young people, that it would be hard to find 8 of this stature.
The authorities also have little cause, willingness or ability to investigate any claims. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricke...
But who could you possibly find to do a comprehensive list of five women from each year since 1926? I mean, they'd have to be some kind of historian who had studied women's cricket for decades.
Also, women should be playing first-class and Test cricket here on a regular basis. I don't think many men get picked for their white ball performances either.
I think Em Arlott and Sophia Dunkley might also have been candidates from the England team.
The home World Cup probably increases the chances of more next year, but maybe not if England play terribly. Which wouldn't be massively unexpected, frankly.
It's an interesting list. No current England players and no White men. Probably the first time in 137 years that either of those has happened.
No women either, but that last happened in 2021.
The maths nerd in me looks at this headline and thinks "Wow, that must mean almost half of matches will have no points for the home team then".
Well the England team has been doing so well, getting some really noteworthy results in high profile matches, that there's clearly nothing to change.
I have made a Cricket Draft fantasy team, but I don't think I'll actively play it seeing as the pages all stopped loading in the half an hour before the matches start.
If you can't switch players when it's announced they aren't playing, what's the point?
It's times like this that you realise why Ben Duckett, who's almost inarguably been England's best Test opener since Sir Alastair Cook, feels like he's fighting to save his spot in the team this summer.
Yep, those five games.
Or, to put it another way, I think Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Heather Knight, and maybe a couple more England regulars shouldn't bank on making the World Cup squad in June.
Now the England women's intra-squad series is over, I think the World Cup squad you'd pick *based solely on performances* would be:
Bouchier
Capsey
Corteen-Coleman
Dean
Dunkley
Ecclestone
Filer
Gaur
Gibson
Jones
Sciver-Brunt
Smith
Villiers
Wyatt-Hodge
Wong
It is emblematic of Rob Key's incompetence and lack of attention that there is no men's national selector for the first rounds of the County Championship, when the previous selector resigned over two months ago.
A question for this week: How furious is Syd that Grace Scrivens has been passed over for the captaincy of Team Heyhoe Flint in a match where she has been selected?
It amuses me that this approach is being presented as maintaining stability, because it creates a scenario where everyone in a position of power in men's cricket (captain, coach, Director of Cricket and chief executive) all lose their jobs within a few months next year.
I cancelled my Sky at the end of last summer. With the Ashes on TNT, there was a large stretch of time without Test cricket, so why not?
I was planning on picking it up again come July, but I'm leaning towards not bothering at this point...
Why would a union dominated by men do that? Is there an example of the PCA ever doing that?
If you want an example: This year, the team salary for men's teams in The Hundred rose by £800,000. The increase for women's teams was £400,000.
I don't think this would be a major issue here, because of the gender split.
If the large PCA union negotiated a new, higher minimum wage for men's cricketers, would the ECB attempt to offer a lower one to women? They would get slaughtered in the press, and probably attacked by politicians.
I think, in fairness, most if all schools 'donate' the indoor nets for free. It's a minor inconvenience for them, 10 hours a year I think.
The money is likely spent more on MCCF staff who call the schools, the clubs, check players for eligibility, fundraise, etc
A screenshot of a blog post from Being Outside Cricket, which explains how both women and non-White players are unable to meaningfully sway the decisions of the PCA (the union for professional cricketers in England and Wales) because they are massively outnumbered by the White male majority.
The democratic nature of the PCA is the problem. Because there are a lot fewer professional women's cricketers than men's, any issues specific to women are by definition a minority concern within the PCA.
Here's a post I wrote in 2021 about this issue: beingoutsidecricket.com/2021/06/15/i...
Also, it doesn't have to be either/or regarding the PCA. It's entirely legal to be in two unions at the same time.
Admittedly, it would be more fun if the ECB was forced to redirect almost a third of the PCA's funding to a union which actually holds it to account. www.gov.uk/join-trade-u...
If you're wondering about the first person to ask about launching a women players' union, I'm thinking the employment lawyer would be a good place to start... www.bbc.com/sport/cricke...
Also a bit of a punt regarding issues such as height. Who knows at 13 which bowlers will grow to be 6 feet tall?
I also notice Team Brittin have fully rotated, every single player has featured in the first two games, but three members of Team Heyhoe Flint haven't played so far.
Do the two assistant coaches in charge of the teams have different approaches? It seems weird for what seems to be a showcase.
Is there any reason why Dunkley is standing in as captain for Team Brittin? Is she seen as a prospective future captain?
Is there any particular reason for the players who weren't included in this first game, like Perrin and Arlott, or is it just rotation among the 30 players?
If you're answering questions, and this has come up several times recently: What is stopping women cricketers from forming their own union?
Surely a smaller union which actually protects and promotes their interests is better than a larger one which consistently doesn't.
You could have used this description at any point in the last 29 years.