Many sport codes have managed to find equality in terms of opportunities for men and women. Cricket has a long way to go to become one of those sports.
Much has been said about the shortage of women’s Test matches on the global circuit, but it’s worth noting again.
The Proteas women have played only 16 Tests since 1960, and only four in the last 10 years.
Granted, they played three four-day matches this year, which indicated that cricket authorities were starting to take the women’s game more seriously in the classic format. But at this stage the Proteas don’t know when they will play another Test, with none yet scheduled for next year.
There has also been a lot said about the absence of decision review system (DRS) technology for the SA team’s one-off Test against England which concluded in Bloemfontein on Tuesday.
This resulted in some controversial decisions being made by umpires which did not please the players, particularly in the Proteas team.
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On top of this, while men play Tests over five days, women’s matches are contested over four days.
This increases the chances of a match ending in a draw, which nobody wants, and it seems like an unnecessary discrepancy, much like men playing over five sets and women playing three sets in Grand Slam tennis matches.
If men can play five sets of tennis, or five days of cricket, then women are equally capable.
All these things suggest that the powers that be do not hold women’s cricket in the same esteem as they do the men, and in some ways that’s fair because the women do still have some way to go to reach the quality and depth achieved by men (who have been playing a lot longer).
But while many of those issues need to be rectified at the base, at grassroots level, some can be corrected at international level where there needs to be more effort to ensure equal opportunity.
They can start by adding more women’s red-ball cricket to the calendar, and providing modern technology at the highest level of the game, just like they do for the men.
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