Matches (7)

IPL (2)

BAN v IND [W] (1)

RHF Trophy (4)

58th Match • IPL • T20 • Dharamsala

Punjab Kings

Royal Challengers Bengaluru

Today

2:00 PM

Match yet to begin

Schedule Table Videos Series

5th T20I • Sylhet

Bangladesh Women

India Women

Today

10:00 AM

Match starts in 4 hrs 43 mins

Schedule Videos Series

Raf Nicholson

The new women's Ashes format? Genius

Seeing how this summer's contests between England and Australia have captivated the public's attention, it looks like a points-based system is the way to go

Raf Nicholson

07-Sep-2013

Cricket fans are a sceptical bunch. We don't like change. Be it overarm bowling back in the the 19th century, the introduction of the helmet in the 1970s, or the onset of T20 cricket, innovations turn us all into Geoffrey Boycotts, grumbling about this being the end of cricket as we know it. We always know better than the innovators.

We are almost always proved wrong.

The outcry from many purists, myself included, when the new women's Ashes format was announced back in May was therefore not a surprise. Test cricket is the pinnacle. Tests are the way things should be decided. The idea of T20 and ODI cricket "mattering", and even deciding a contest as ancient as the Ashes, was anathema, horrific.

Full post

Bored of watching Australia's men lose? Go watch the women

Women's cricket wins converts to its cause when their series are more competitive and closely fought than the men's

Raf Nicholson

02-Aug-2013

England are 2-0 up in the Ashes for the first time since 1978. The second Test was so one-sided that a 5-0 whitewash has now become a serious prospect, and Australia are scratching around for a solution to their batting woes. England fans who remember the 1990s (hi, Dad) are enjoying all this while it lasts. But others, who after that first Test were hoping for a 2005-esque summer, are now saying that such a one-sided Ashes series would be "bad for cricket".

I disagree.

The women's Ashes starts on August 11 at Wormsley: a single Test, followed by three ODIs and three T20Is. Australia's women are currently champions in all three formats, having won the 50-over World Cup earlier this year, beaten England in the final of the T20 World Cup last October, and triumphed in the last women's Ashes Test match, in Australia in early 2011. But England are on home turf, and have two key assets: the run machine that is Charlotte Edwards, and, assuming she is fit, Katherine Brunt: without doubt the best female fast bowler in the world at the moment. While Australia start as favourites, it's going to be a fantastic series, and it is likely to be a hard-fought one.

Full post

A chance for Pakistan's women to grow in stature

Participating in qualifying tournaments is not necessarily enough for developing women's sides

Raf Nicholson

03-Jul-2013

England women's summer of cricket began with the first of two ODIs against Pakistan. It will be followed by two T20Is between the same teams. Pakistan are currently eighth in the unofficial women's ODI rankings, following their last-place finish in the World Cup earlier this year, and England, who finished third, will be expected to win these matches easily.

Sometimes, though, cricket matches are about much more than winning or losing.

Pakistan first played international cricket at the beginning of 1997. The team had been formed the previous year by sisters Shaiza and Sharmeen Khan, whose father had a carpet business in Karachi and Lahore, which acted as sponsor. Shaiza and Sharmeen had studied at Leeds, played for their university's women's team, and been inspired to form a national team when they went to watch the 1993 World Cup final at Lord's. They secured International Women's Cricket Council membership for Pakistan in September 1996, and this made Pakistan eligible for the 1997 World Cup, held in India.

Full post

What price amateurism?

Playing for the love of the game is admirable but for those at the top of their sport, should it really still be necessary?

Raf Nicholson

31-May-2013

They say that the MCC abolished cricket's amateur-professional divide in 1962. They are wrong. Men's cricket at the top level may have become totally professional. But women's cricket has remained amateur.

Over 50 years on, I still cannot name a single fully professional female cricketer. No woman anywhere in the world has ever earned her living by playing cricket. Even the very best - like Sarah Taylor and Ellyse Perry - still play largely for the love of the game, not for their next pay cheque. In an era where spot-fixing and IPL auctions dominate the men's game, that is refreshing. But it is also problematic.

We want women's cricket to be exciting, and of the highest standard. But how much can we really demand from our women cricketers without remunerating them appropriately? How much time can they be expected to give to the game when they are also juggling other employment? And will cricket's biggest stars really remain in the game when other careers would pay them so much more? Why should Ellyse Perry stay in cricket when football is potentially much more financially rewarding?

Full post

Give girls role models of their own

Women cricketers still grow up idolising male players, like they did back in the 1940s. It's time that changed

Raf Nicholson

01-May-2013

We all have childhood heroes. Cricketers who we adore growing up. Mine (I'm sorry if this makes anyone feel old) was Nasser Hussain.

Usually we want to be our heroes. But I knew I'd never captain England. I wouldn't even carry the drinks. Girls didn't play cricket at my school, we watched the boys do it.

Until I went to Lord's in 2004. I watched Nasser play in his last Test. And then, during the lunch interval, I watched some ten-year-old girls run on and do a Kwik Cricket demonstration. I was 16, and these were the first girls I had ever seen on a Proper Cricket Pitch.

Full post

The belated rise of West Indies women

West Indies reached the final of the 2013 Women's World Cup after blossoming spectacularly in recent years - but a little-remembered ODI victory back in 1979 could have been the starting point for a much earlier ascent

Raf Nicholson

31-Mar-2013

Anyone who knows anything about cricket knows about the West Indies team of the 1980s.

Greenidge. Lloyd. Marshall. Holding. Garner. Richards. Walsh. All greats of the game, all names that conjure up instant recognition.

How about Gill? Or Whittaker? Or Browne? Heard of any of them?

Full post

The women's game - A triumph of spirit

What is now required from the ICC to drive the women's game forward is the same passion which the organisers of that first tournament back in 1973 displayed

Raf Nicholson

27-Feb-2013

The first ever Women's World Cup match was supposed to take place on Kew Green, in London, in June 1973. No one turned up to watch. It rained. Eventually the New Zealand and Jamaican women's teams wandered off, and the match was abandoned without a ball being bowled.

The Women's World Cup which finished in India last week is the tenth of its kind. The first, hosted by England, took place at a time when only five countries could field an international women's cricket team. The women who organised it were unpaid volunteers, attempting to run a global tournament on a scale which even men's cricket had never seen before.

Naturally, it was at times a rather chaotic undertaking. For starters, running a World Cup was a logistical nightmare, especially when female use of cricket grounds was right at the bottom of the priority list. The majority of matches in 1973 took place on obscure pitches around the country which were not even county standard. The one exception was the final, which was played at Edgbaston - though only after the MCC had refused the Women's Cricket Association's request to hold it at Lord's.

Full post

1 2 3 4

Showing 31 - 37 of 37