The Bowled Over Cricket Blog

To say that women’s cricket is on an upwards spiral is an understatement. Earlier this year, close to 90,000 people crammed into the MCG to watch the Women’s World T20 Final on international Women’s Day, smashing all previous attendance records. Over 9 million watched the game on TV in India alone and around 1.2 million Aussies also tuned in. But due to COVID-19, many are fearful that this momentum could be lost. The pandemic has dealt cricket a heavy blow, with matches having to be rescheduled or cancelled altogether and budgets being scaled back. And whilst we’ve seen men’s cricket return in force, with England contesting a white ball series against Ireland and test series against Pakistan and the West Indies, we are yet to see any of the major women’s cricketing nations go head to head. With both South Africa and India pulling out of tours to the UK, we could see no international women’s cricket this English summer. Furthermore, the 2021 Women’s World Cup has been pushed b...

If cricket has a nemesis, it would be rain.  Even the slightest whiff of precipitation can be enough to send players and officials scuttling back into the pavilion and the covers coming on. It’s almost laughable that the world’s second most popular sport can’t cope with H2O, whilst other sports merrily continue when the weather takes a turn for the worst.   Although rain only affects cricket in some countries (cough, cough, the UK), it can cause matches to be drawn or cancelled altogether - meaning fans are deprived of the game they love and, more importantly, teams can be denied crucial victories. It’s not like we can politely ask the rain to stop and the weather gods will happily oblige. So what should cricket do? Should we just keep losing huge chucks of matches because of the weather? Perhaps place roofs on stadiums? Have reserve days? Settle it on the Play Station? Flip a coin? All perfectly viable solutions (well, most of them at least) - but couldn’t we j...