During my playing career, I never thought the women’s game would be in the position it’s in now in terms of its professionalism, opportunities, platform and profile. It’s beyond my expectations. The speed of growth has been phenomenal.
But a book wasn’t on my agenda at all, until COVID-19 provided the space and time for my mind to be a bit more creative. I knew I wanted to produce something that can help people. I’d already set up The Female Cricket Store, which provides equipment specifically suited for female cricketers, and a book seemed to link in well with the ethos of making it as easy as possible for people to get involved with the women’s and girls’ game. Then, out of the blue, a publisher got in touch and asked if I’d be interested in putting pen to paper.
With the work I do, a lot of questions come my way when people start getting involved, or when clubs or schools decide to set up a women and girls’ section, so we wanted to create a book that would help those that are relatively new to the game. People are looking for information on many areas from how to build a girls’ cricket programme when maybe you don’t have the facilities? What are the differences for coaches and volunteers when they’re leading girls’ teams rather than boys’ teams? So, we went through all those common questions to give us a skeleton outline. Then it was just a case of getting stuck in.
When I visit schools and clubs and grounds, the biggest thing that comes across is that there are so many willing, able, passionate and motivated people wanting to get involved. This book is meant to be a practical guide for how they can do that. And for those who’ve been involved for years, it’s a great opportunity to confirm that what they’re doing is right, or to give them a bit of food for thought about how they could do things differently.
Some of the steps you can take are quick wins, like providing the same facilities as you would to a male team or having music playing and trying to make the sessions as fun as possible. But it’s also important to understand the reasons why players might be turning up to play cricket. Some might have a competitive edge. For others, it’s about the social dynamics. You want to make things engaging and welcoming at every opportunity. It’s about being open to trying lots of new ideas to see what works best.
The biggest challenge now is for clubs who might be looking at doubling their membership after adding women’s and girls’ teams to the mix. You have to think creatively and try to link up with schools and other clubs to share facilities. The last thing we want is to turn away young boys and girls because clubs are at capacity.
You’ve only to look at the women’s game to see why things are growing so fast. The Women’s Premier League (WPL) is such an exciting concept. Obviously, the amount of money that some of the players have gone for is incredible. I covered the auction and I said to my colleagues at the time that when I was playing, you’d have been lucky to make that kind of money in your entire career. That speaks volumes to where we are now and it’s so exciting for women’s cricket.
It's so hard to predict where we’ll eventually end up, but it’s I hope that the WPL will get as big as the men’s competition in terms of the number of teams playing and the overall interest in it from fans across the world.
I’d be more than happy to bring out a new version of the book in a few years’ time, because that will mean the women’s and girls’ games has kept on evolving and growing. Fingers crossed!
Lydia’s book ‘Women and girls’ cricket: how we can grow the game together’ is available from The Female Bookstore.