It’s Just Not Cricket
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Ladies we’ve been bowled out, rather than bowled over – apparently the sisterhood is to blame for Australia’s defeat by England in the shortest first innings in Test cricket history.
I know. I feel really bad about it. We are a ‘distraction’ on tour as the former Test wicketkeeper/current cricket commentator Ian Healy describes us.
It seems that for Australia (by that I mean, Australian men) to be in the winning mindset; “Your mind needs to be completely focused on it. Cricket is a sport that requires complete concentration. You need everything going for you and I’m not sure they’re pushing for that hard enough.”
We, ladies, need to take this distraction business seriously as it is a matter of national pride and honour that stems back to the first ever test match in 1877 between Australia and England, where the British were flabbergasted that England was defeated by the colony.
Without the Ashes in our grasp to hold over England then who are we?
Possibly just a bunch of distracting women, who incidentally have historically soaked the whites so the men can don them, birthed those very cricketers, driven them to the game that goes for ever, soothed the egos, supported their successes one catch at a time, each innings at the crease, every hot long hour in the field and most importantly, loved the game as much as any man.
I’d say we are batting well above our average.
Women celebrate the victories and the losses of Australian teams as much as men. We are after all, Australian’s too and part of the team.
No man could take the field without the support of a woman at some point in his life and to sideline women in a moment of national defeat is to ignore that contribution those ‘WAGS’ have undoubtedly made.
When all we see are men winning on the field, we forget about women. We celebrate what we see. We blame what we can’t see.
This is the frame that women have been trapped within; we are the scapegoats, those on the sidelines, the distracting parallel to men’s pursuits.
This is still how we are perceived and regarded in and on many field.
Rather than give us a reason for Australia’s poor performance, Healy has given us an insight into the cultural attitude women confront at every turn – from what we pursue professionally and how we mother to what we are entitled to celebrate or commiserate.
This week Elizabeth Broderick, Sex Discrimination Commissioner, was reported sharing an anecdote from a trip to Brussels where while at NATO she received a text from her son in Australia asking ‘What’s for dinner?’
She lamented the ongoing challenge for women that ‘the ideal worker model is someone who was available 24/7 without any visible caring responsibilities.’
It’s the kind of complete focus that Healy says our Australian Men’s Cricket Team needs in order to succeed. The kind of complete focus that is an illusion for many women as we juggle a myriad of responsibilities and roles.
Just ask Belinda Clark, the former Captain of the Australian National Women’s Cricket Team for 14 years who at the same time as undertaking her on-field role was the Chief Executive of Women’s Cricket Australia. Ask any other woman who has pursued a national or international cricket career often with children and or a fulltime job to support their passion.
No tenure, sponsorship deals or major broadcasts of their games. Just a love of the game, with thousands of distractions and reasons stacked against them.
My debut came at 15 when funding to encourage more girls in sport reached my region and a teacher reluctantly cobbled together a girls cricket side to compete. We were patchy, without a season of competitive cricket amongst us; and just a few training sessions before we took to the field.
We felt under prepared, out of place in the ill-fitting whites, our fielding, batting and bowling talent was the rawest of raw. The boys cricket team came to jeer us on, appalled at the spectacle on their pitch. Each delivery and the crack of leather on the bat was an opportunity to prove we could do this. There were spectacular catches, a run out and my moment at the crease facing down six overs saw 48 runs added to the innings, an exhilarating streak I thought would go on forever.
We won; we loved it; we celebrated. And yet, we never played again; the sheer vulnerability of playing the men’s game so visibly was too much.
This week not too far away from the pitch that delivered the historic defeat for the Australian Men’s Cricket Team, a warm up match was in session for the Women’s Ashes where the Southern Stars scored 6 for 391 before declaring.
Ladies, our innings has arrived and Australia, it seems, just might be in for a sensational Ashes Tour.
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