English women’s game enters new era

When the Kia Super League launches on Saturday with a clash between the Yorkshire Diamonds and Loughborough Lightning, Headingley will showcase a raft of intriguing – and exciting – contests. Yorkshire and England’s fiery Katherine Brunt will resume her long-standing contest with the brilliant Ellyse Perry, aided by the insight of Perry’s New South Wales captain and Australian vice-captain Alex Blackwell. Following on from an outstanding summer with the bat for her country, Lauren Winfield will go head-to-head with England team-mate Georgia Elwiss and face one of New Zealand’s best all-rounders in Sophie Devine.

There is much to anticipate in this watershed competition. Never has there been such a concentration of elite female players in a domestic tournament – the KSL has six teams compared to Australia’s eight in the Women’s BBL. Each side contains three internationals, three England contracted players and two England Academy signings. The even spread of talent should make for tight contests and a competitive league that displays the best skills the women’s game has to offer.

On Sunday at the Ageas Bowl, former England captain and legend of the women’s game, Charlotte Edwards, will call on her Southern Vipers cohorts – New Zealand captain and Wisden’s Women’s Cricketer of the Year, Suzie Bates, and one of the most explosive T20 batsmen in the women’s game, fellow New Zealander Sara McGlashan – to tackle a Surrey Stars line up boasting Nat Sciver, hot off blasting the fastest ever 50 in a women’s ODI – and Marizanne Kapp, the outstanding South African allrounder.

And yet, six months after the inaugural WBBL in Australia surpassed all expectations to become a massive success, drawing unprecedented crowds, television audiences and mainstream media coverage, there is a sense this competition will be low key in comparison. No matches will be televised and only a limited number – seven in total – will be broadcast on BBC radio. In a month during which England’s men continue their Test series against Pakistan and the Olympics takes centre stage in Rio there is a danger the competition could fly so far under the sporting radar it may struggle to register with the mainstream sports media.

It is, perhaps, unfair to expect the KSL to deliver the same success as the WBBL. The Australian competition piggy-backed on the men’s competition, with the marketing, merchandise and fan-base already put in place by five years of the BBL, which has itself been a roaring success in the Australian sporting landscape. England, with its internal prevaricating over the make-up of a men’s domestic T20 tournament which has limited television coverage, has had to start from scratch with new teams and no established fan base to leverage.

In many ways the ECB is now trying to overcome many years of neglect by those formerly in charge of women’s domestic cricket. There has been no strong pyramid structure, as there has been in Australia. Instead, the focus has been on developing international players through the high-performance academy based at Loughborough. This top-heavy approach is at least partly responsible for the environment that required such a significant shake up in the national side this year; the lack of players forcing their way into the England side through outstanding …

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