Women's World Cup starts March 7th 2009     

   Huge strides have been made in the last decade by Women's Cricket worldwide. This has been achieved despite the reluctance, in the past, of ICC to embrace the IWCC which remained separate and independent and unnecessarily vulnerable and constrained as a result. This past scenario also inhibited the putting together of any worldwide promotional strategy. In particular, it made it very difficult for IWCC to encourage the game outside of the limited number of ICC Full Members, especially in the new cricket countries or senior associates.

     This was unfortunate as the growth of interest and participation by girls and women in single and team sports is a burgeoning internatonal phenomenon. The classic examples of this are the success of women's soccer and rugby union in the US. Within a decade of introduction they had won the World Cup in both sports. The failure of ICC and IWCC to merge for so long was  just one reason why cricket remained outside of the Olympic movement and thus failed to attact the vast pool of funds available to Olympic sports at National, Regional and Town level for men and women throughout so many of the new and developing cricket countries. Given the congestion in the men's international cricket programme one obvious solution to an Olympic presence would be for the women's game to be played there though Twenty20 is now the obvious answer.

     Participation at the Olympic Games should be a tremendous goal for young sportswomen to aspire to and create a surge of further interest globally. In the northern hemisphere cricket season there is women's cricket played in England, Ireland, Denmark and Holland. Recently the women's game has enjoyed a renaissance north of the border in Scotland but there is precious little women's cricket in North America. Girls and some young women do play in continental Europe from France to the Czech Republic but within the men and boys' game.

     It was particularly unfortunate that there was no international development programme in the East Asia and Pacific region where women have played a form of cricket for a century.   It would not take some dedicated and good coaches long to turn the athleticism and eye ball skills of these island women into very good 'MCC Code' cricketers.

     It has certainly been the policy of the established cricket countries to play mixed cricket at junior level and for the best girls to persist in boys teams as long as they compete and enjoy it before playing women's only cricket. In all these countries with the exception of India, Women's Cricket has merged with the Men's to produce a unified governing body in stark contrast to the two international councils who finally made it in 2005 after protracted negotiations. A merger of great importance not just to women's cricket but because it provided the basis for the first time of Olympic Sport Recognition and   that opened up government and local support for cricket in a multitude of developing cricket countries.

     Marriage and partners persist into the modern world of empowered independent women and almost all other serious international sports bodies are merged to the sport's benefit so hopefully the women's game will make major strides forward now under a unified world governing body. One would also hope that a strategy for the women's game will soon be a part of every ICC Continental Development Body and its constituent national members.

    A decade or so has been wasted at a time of increasing participation of girls/women in team sports not least across Europe and North America. Let us hope that lost time will be made up at speed henceforth. And yet it is apparent that Women's Cricket in the major countries is receiving a level of coaching and general investment unheard of in past decades. Modern international women cricketers are much fitter and more athletic than their forbears.

    Since Women’s cricket came under the auspices of the ICC  in 2005 following  the ICC merger between ICC and the International Women’s Cricket Council (IWCC) the women's game has indeed grown fast and there are now 51 members with formal girls' and/or women's teams playing in structured cricket competitions from an original base of 15.

    A further 23 do not have competition teams yet but do have girls in junior development initiatives. That makes 65 of ICC's 97 members with some women's cricket and it is growing all the time.    There are a growing number of  new continental Women's cricket competitions namely in Africa and Asia. Despite much prejudice against it Women's cricket is developing in Muslim countries in particular Pakistan and Bangladesh.