Racism is entrenched in cricket and women routinely experience sexism and misogyny within the sport, a new report has concluded.
The sport continues to be elitist, with little to no focus given to addressing class barriers, the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) report ‘Holding Up A Mirror To Cricket’, said.
More than 4,000 people responded to the ICEC’s call for evidence when it was putting the report together, with one in two saying they had experienced discrimination within the game.
The report made 44 recommendations, including as “an essential first step” a call for the England and Wales Cricket Board to make an unqualified public apology recognising that racism, sexism, elitism and class-based discrimination existed and still exist and recognise the impact of that upon victims.
ECB chair Richard Thompson has apologised and pledged in a letter to ICEC chair Cindy Butts: “We will use this moment to reset cricket.”
The ICEC report, which was commissioned by the ECB in November 2020, found the game’s structures led to racial disparities and discrimination, and that the women’s game was subordinate to the men’s, with women given little power, voice or influence. Butts said women were treated as “second-class citizens” in the game.
Private schools dominated the talent pathway, with scarce provision of cricket in state schools and substantial cost barriers faced by those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
The report also found cricket’s complaints systems “confusing”, “overly defensive” and “not fit for purpose”. It said victims and those accused of discrimination were not properly supported, with people often “suffering in silence” for fear of victimisation or simply out of a conviction that no action would take place.
The report found game-wide confusion over how the regulatory system in regard to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) worked, and highlighted the ECB’s dual role as a promoter and regulator as a “conflict of interest”.
“Our findings are unequivocal,” Butts said.
“Racism, class-based discrimination, elitism and sexism are widespread and deep-rooted.
“The game must face up to the fact that it’s not banter or just a few bad apples. Discrimination is both overt and baked into the structures and processes within cricket.
“The stark reality is cricket is not a game for everyone.
“Whilst there has been commendable and significant progress in the women’s game, women continue to be treated as second-class citizens with unequal access, pay and treatment. The England Women’s team are yet to play a Test Match at Lord’s, the home of cricket!
“Eighty-seven per cent of Pakistani and Bangladeshi respondents, 82 per cent of Indian respondents and 75 per cent of black respondents to our survey told us they have experienced discrimination, which is simply unacceptable.
“If you attend a state school, you’re less likely to have access to cricket and have the same opportunity to progress in the game as your private school peers. For those who do ‘make it’ we were saddened to hear they were sometimes subjected to class-based discrimination. Cricket needs to urgently level the playing field.”
Butts did highlight the report had found “encouraging examples of good practice” and congratulated the ECB for being “brave enough” to commission the report in the first place.
Butts added: “We have confidence in the ECB’s new leadership and their ability to take our recommendations forward – the proof will be demonstrable change.
“The game must now lean into the uncomfortable truths and commit to reforming cricket’s culture, structures and processes. This is the only way to make cricket genuinely a sport for all.”
Among the 44 recommendations are a call for a fundamental overhaul of the pay structure in the women’s professional game and equal representation for the women’s game throughout the governance structure of English and Welsh cricket.
The report found women received “an embarrassingly small amount” compared to men, with the ICEC saying it had “credible evidence” that the average salary for England Women was 20.6 per cent of that received by their male counterparts in white-ball cricket – though the ECB considers this figure to be up to 30 per cent.
The report recommended equal pay on average at domestic level by 2029 and at international level by 2030.
The ECB must also develop an action plan to “revive” black cricket, through financial support and targeted community programmes.
The talent pathway must be completely overhauled by 2025 to make it more “meritocratic”, the report said, and crucially it called for an independent regulator to increase trust and confidence in the process and address concerns over conflicts of interest.
Butts’ introduction to the report concluded: “To those who don’t recognise there is a problem, those who think cricket’s problems are isolated,
those who mistakenly believe focusing on issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion is distracting cricket from cricket, I have one clear message: if cricket is to survive and thrive, and become a game genuinely for all, it has to grip the opportunities I truly believe our recommendations represent.
“I remain optimistic that cricket will respond to this challenge with passion, creativity, and commitment.”
The report recommended that the MCC move the annual matches between Eton and Harrow and Oxford and Cambridge away from Lord’s after this year, to be replaced by national finals days for state schools.
It also called for the ECB to revisit its high-profile match allocation criteria when the current set expire next year and place a greater emphasis on EDI in them. The report said being allocated such matches, or having the right to host them withdrawn, is a powerful tool to encourage compliance with EDI.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
Yorkshire not in ECB’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of women’s professional game
Yorkshire will have to wait until 2027 to take part in the England and Wales Cricket Board’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of the women’s professional game, after eight other counties were selected to lead the way.
Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire have been chosen as hosts, with the governing body abolishing the existing regional structure in favour of alignment with the first-class counties.
The blow to Yorkshire, for whom this is a further setback after several turbulent years on and off the field, has been mitigated by a promise to bring them into an expanded competition in the third season.
Glamorgan have been given the same assurances and both will receive additional funding to help build their pathway.
But there will be no ‘Tier 1’ cricket at Lord’s in the foreseeable future, with MCC declining to put itself forward and Middlesex among those overlooked. Sussex have also been left on the outside looking in, despite a long and strong commitment to the women’s game.
They will be hoping to be included as the elite level continues to grow, with the ECB outlining plans to further expand to 12 teams by 2029.
ECB chief executive Richard Gould said: “I’d like to congratulate those counties who have been successful in their bids.
“I’m also delighted that in light of the support we have seen and the strength of the bids we have considered, we can accelerate our plans, including new top tier professional teams at Glamorgan and Yorkshire by 2027 with a further two being introduced by 2029.
“More professional teams means more women able to make a career out of being a cricketer, more role models to inspire future generations, and more of the country having a women’s professional team to follow nearby.
“I recognise today’s announcement will also be disappointing to those who haven’t been successful at this stage. But with the new three-tier structure we are introducing, there is still a huge opportunity for them to compete in the other tiers so together we can all realise the potential of women’s domestic cricket.”
Beth Barrett-Wild, the ECB’s director of the women’s professional game, praised the calibre of offers from around the country.
“At the start of this tender process we challenged the first-class counties to show us their vision for the women’s professional game and to demonstrate their desire and commitment to becoming one of our professional Tier 1 clubs,” she said.
“Over the last couple of months it’s been brilliant to see the time and energy that has gone into the submissions, and I’ve been hugely impressed by the quality and ambition of the bids.
“It’s clear that the game is united in wanting to take the women’s professional game forward. I’m energised about what comes next, for the counties themselves, for the players, for fans and for everyone who wants to see women’s cricket continue its accelerated trajectory.”
The ECB has put £5million per year of new funding into the women’s domestic set-up, rising to £8million when Yorkshire and Glamorgan come aboard.
It estimates a potential increase of 80 per cent in the number of professional female players.
There will be no promotion or relegation between 2025 and 2028, allowing the new three-tier system to bed in.
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