Women’s cricket has come a long way in a short period of time. But it hasn’t come from nowhere.
The stars of today have trailblazers from long before they were born to thank for building the game when professional contracts and sold-out crowds weren’t yet on the agenda.
Instead, it was an era of white skorts, time off work and love for the game, an era of volunteers driving forward a sport that today has never been bigger.
With 2025 bringing the first year of a professional women’s country structure, and 2026 the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, we brought together four England stars from different generations to reflect on where cricket is today, where it’s come from and what’s still to come.
Lydia Greenway, Lynne Thomas, Carole Cornthwaite (nee Hodges) and Heather Knight have between them represented England 599 times, over a time period of 59 years. They’ve won five World Cups, and inspired the beginning of thousands of cricketing journeys. Their stories are both incredibly similar and incredibly different.
Across a wide-ranging and entertaining discussion, the quartet discuss how they got into the game, the barriers they faced and how they overcame them. They talk about playing for England and travelling the world, about pay and kit and facilities; they touch on the legacy and enduring impact of Rachael Heyhoe Flint, reflect on winning the World Cup, inspiring a generation and debate the merits of the reverse-sweep.
The video is available to watch in full here.
To watch Part 1 – on finding out you’re playing for England and life on the road – click here.
Heather Knight said: “It was so special to spend time with Lynne, Carol and Lydia. The game has come so far and we have so much to thank them for, and everyone else who played the game before the professional era. You look at where the game is now and there are so many more opportunities for girls in the game, they got all the way in spite of the system and made it more achievable and more possible for everyone after them. We have something in common, having all represented our country, and it was really heart-warming to find out the experiences we shared as well as what separated us.”
Lynne Thomas – who scored the first-ever World Cup hundred, in 1973 and went on to lift the trophy as a member of Rachael Heyhoe Flint’s side – said: “I love travelling the country and watching Heather and her team play, so it was lovely to be able to chat to her, Lydia and Carole. I made my England debut in 1966 and things have changed an awful lot since then. I just love seeing women’s cricket grow and more women and girls given the chance to get involved. It’s a fantastic sport to play and I hope it continues to get bigger.”
Carole Cornthwaite (nee Hodges), also a World Cup winner, in 1993, said: “My first game of hard-ball cricket was when I was 14, and I was lucky that we knew someone who was able to take me to my local club. Without that, I may never had made it into organised cricket and I think that’s the story for many women from my generation and before. Thankfully, it’s very different now, but equally my experiences as an England player were not entirely dissimilar to Heather and to Lydia. It was really nice to chat as equals on that topic, and I appreciated the chance to bring together different eras of the England team.”
Lydia Greenway OBE, a double World Cup winner in 2009, said: “I don’t think we look backwards enough to commemorate and celebrate the impact of players from before the professional era. Hearing about Lynne and Carole’s experience was fascinating. Their access to cricket as young girls was a long way away from what it is today, but they still made it to the very top, and in doing so they helped make our game what it is in 2025. Across all women’s sport it’s really important to remember those women who were there at the beginning, we owe them so much.”