The battle of the sexes....is there a place for women in men's cricket?

[Son Of Coco]

Originally Posted by grecian

Well some have made cuts, and have qualified for mens events, so as I say I don't really see any physical reason why not, they're not going to be hitting it like A bubba, Colsaerts, Daly or Quiros, but you don't need to, to be competitive.

I did say that it hasn't happened yet, but I don't see why it can't.

Making the cut isn't competitive though, it's making the cut.

There's not a woman golfer on the planet who would match it with Woods, McIlroy, or even those ranked at the bottom end of the top 100 on a course set up for men. I also have a sneaky feeling Michelle Wie was a publicity stunt, not an example of someone who legitimately qualified for an event.

I'll be very surprised if we see a woman golfer who can be competitive in a men's event off the same tees before I die for the simple fact that most of them don't hit it far enough. Laura Davies could give it a whack, but in doing so she sacrificed control.

[Гурин]

Originally Posted by Son Of Coco

Making the cut isn't competitive though, it's making the cut.

There's not a woman golfer on the planet who would match it with Woods, McIlroy, or even those ranked at the bottom end of the top 100 on a course set up for men. I also have a sneaky feeling Michelle Wie was a publicity stunt, not an example of someone who legitimately qualified for an event.

I'll be very surprised if we see a woman golfer who can be competitive in a men's event off the same tees before I die for the simple fact that most of them don't hit it far enough. Laura Davies could give it a whack, but in doing so she sacrificed control.

Just one thing, in golf you have to rely completely on yourself to move the ball, power is a tool you can't do without.

In cricket, on the other side, you can score runs just by timing the ball, using the speed generated by the bowler. Maybe we'll never see the female equivalent of Afridi or Watson (unless we travel back in time and kidnap a juvenile Serena Williams) but a Laxmanesque approach might work better for women. This is obviously not the case with Sarah Taylor, but, as she will be in the team to improve her game for the Women national team (and that's why it's a nonsense to talk about selection only on merit, one of the job of the counties is to produce and improve players for the national teams), I'm all for this move.

A sidenote, the only drawback until now is an article about her on the most popoular italian newspaper, something about her being an english legend already better than most men ("she has nothing to learn from men") breaking centuries of segregation in a game still stuck in the 1800 blah blah blah. The second time cricket appears in a newspaper in the last year (the first one was about Stuart Broad being a sex symbol) and again it's all complete rubbish.

[grecian]

Originally Posted by Гурин

Just one thing, in golf you have to rely completely on yourself to move the ball, power is a tool you can't do without.

In cricket, on the other side, you can score runs just by timing the ball, using the speed generated by the bowler. Maybe we'll never see the female equivalent of Afridi or Watson (unless we travel back in time and kidnap a juvenile Serena Williams) but a Laxmanesque approach might work better for women. This is obviously not the case with Sarah Taylor, but, as she will be in the team to improve her game for the Women national team (and that's why it's a nonsense to talk about selection only on merit, one of the job of the counties is to produce and improve players for the national teams), I'm all for this move.

A sidenote, the only drawback until now is an article about her on the most popoular italian newspaper, something about her being an english legend already better than most men ("she has nothing to learn from men") breaking centuries of segregation in a game still stuck in the 1800 blah blah blah. The second time cricket appears in a newspaper in the last year (the first one was about Stuart Broad being a sex symbol) and again it's all complete rubbish.

Fred Funk, won tournaments hitting it 250 odd, length isn't everything.......

[Гурин]

Originally Posted by grecian

Fred Funk, won tournaments hitting it 250 odd, length isn't everything.......

... isn't everything, expecially at those levels, but I frankly think that his career is exactly the maximum we can expect from the best woman in golf, unless she is godlike around the green and the organizers stop cutting the rough as if it was a grade-2 fairway, something that I really despise in some american tournaments (but probably helps selling a lot more 1500$ titanium drivers)

They might not be everything nor anything in both sports, but I still mantain that in cricket both sheer strenght and power are less important than in golf.

[grecian]

Originally Posted by Гурин

... isn't everything, expecially at those levels, but I frankly think that his career is exactly the maximum we can expect from the best woman in golf, unless she is godlike around the green and the organizers stop cutting the rough as if it was a grade-2 fairway, something that I really despise in some american tournaments (but probably helps selling a lot more 1500$ titanium drivers)

They might not be everything nor anything in both sports, but I still mantain that in cricket both sheer strenght and power are less important than in golf.

Hey, I'm not saying they could be number 1, and I'm not saying anyone, like in cricket, is good enough to compete at the highest level ATM, but I think there's no physical reason why not.

Alexis Thompson is 17 and averages 276 on the LPGA.

The Michelle Wie farce put the whole thing back I think.

[Гурин]

Originally Posted by grecian

Hey, I'm not saying they could be number 1, and I'm not saying anyone, like in cricket, is good enough to compete at the highest level ATM, but I think there's no physical reason why not.

Alexis Thompson is 17 and averages 276 on the LPGA.

The Michelle Wie farce put the whole thing back I think.

Agree 100% about Michelle Wie.

There is one other thing though: I have the feeling (people living in a cricketing country to confirm) that the best female golf players have much higher standards of training, even at junior levels, than best female cricket players. I always had the impression that women cricket is not taken seriously (ex. training 5 days a week) in test nations.

Without reaching the extremes of a Polgar education (in a sport where having women compete among themselves is really a nonsense), I think that there could be a massive room for improvement in the womens' game.

[wellAlbidarned]

Women's cricket is taken pretty seriously from what I've seen, more seriously than the guy's stuff sometimes. Though my old high school came second in the NZ national champs so that probably skews my view a bit.

Of course they're not going to train 5 days a week because most of them have other commitments. I don't think many junior sports have that kind of training intensity, would be borderline child abuse tbh.

[Гурин]

Originally Posted by wellAlbidarned

Women's cricket is taken pretty seriously from what I've seen, more seriously than the guy's stuff sometimes. Though my old high school came second in the NZ national champs so that probably skews my view a bit.

Interesting, given that here are virtual to none money in the women's game.

Originally Posted by wellAlbidarned

Of course they're not going to train 5 days a week because most of them have other commitments. I don't think many junior sports have that kind of training intensity, would be borderline child abuse tbh.

And this is even more interesting. Here in Italy pretty much every sport at junior level has the majority of teams training at least 3 times a week, with the football pros already doing the full five (6 if you include the game) by the time they are in high school; in fact the repetition of HS years because of football commitment is a problem, expecially in the centre-south of the country.

On the other side, a considerable share of our female football is struggling and only recently slowly coming out of his problem about sexual preferences of the players (and relative fears involved), which still really hampers its developement. But that's another topic, one quite difficult to talk about, where you're always on a knife-edge.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by Neil Pickup

(1) is a legitimate point. Second XI sides have a tendency to have random 13- and 14-year-olds thrown in at the deep end, batting 9 and not bowling. Don't forget Yorkshire played a 15-year-old in their first-team two years ago... if he can play, then surely Sarah Taylor can manage it?



It looks a legitimate enquiry, particularly as it's a short-term plan at the start of the season whilst the regular 2nd XI keepers finish their exams. If she's good enough, then great. If she isn't, then it'll be obvious. Taylor must have faced 90mph on the bowling machine (hell, I've faced 83 and I'm crap).

Kid's hero is obviously Adam Gilchrist.

[Son Of Coco]

Originally Posted by Гурин

... isn't everything, expecially at those levels, but I frankly think that his career is exactly the maximum we can expect from the best woman in golf, unless she is godlike around the green and the organizers stop cutting the rough as if it was a grade-2 fairway, something that I really despise in some american tournaments (but probably helps selling a lot more 1500$ titanium drivers)

They might not be everything nor anything in both sports, but I still mantain that in cricket both sheer strenght and power are less important than in golf.

The set-up of the courses is completely different for men and women too...where power comes into it is hacking it out of wiry 6-inch (or longer) thick rough, or nailing it an extra 30m down the fairway in order to attack a pin that's tucked in behind a bunker with a 7 iron instead of a 5 iron. I've played Royal Pines after it was set-up for the Ladies Masters, and my home course after it was set-up for a qualifying event for a men's pro tournament on the coast, and it was like chalk and cheese. Hit it in the rough at Royal Pines and it wasn't much different to hitting off the fairway most of the time. Hit it in the rough set up for the qualifying event and you had to hack it as far down the fairway as you could manage, which wasn't very far normally. The greens were like lightning.

There are also a wider variety of techniques on the women's tour...suggesting you can get away with a swing that's not quite spot on as you don't get punished as badly when it all goes wrong. Although, in saying that, those who have reached the top 10 are usually pretty sound.

Annika Sorenstam is probably the best women's golfer ever, and she missed the cut at The Colonial. Sure, someone might come along in the future who has the physical attributes to match it with the men. But they're a long way off at the moment. You just won't get the clubhead speed needed to match it with the guys.

[zorax]

Cricinfo chimes in through Raf Nicholson:

Guest Column : Why mixed cricket will not help develop the women's game | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

Personally, I disagree with most of that.

Sure Women's cricket relies less on power and intimidation and more on skill and technique, but that doesn't directly mean women can't play with men. I mean, bowlers like Praveen Kumar and batsmen like Mushfiqur Rahim aren't intimidating anyone, but if they can play and compete and do well with big tall fast bowlers and dangerous hard hitting batsmen, why can't equally skilful women do so too?

I actually played cricket with the Singapore U-19 women's wicket-keeper batsman in an inter-University cricket match. It was a small ground, 35 overs a side game, and she managed to score 20 odd opening the batting and even hit our opening bowler for a six (well timed pull shot). And she did a pretty good job behind the stumps.

She wasn't as powerful or intimidating as the other batsmen, but did a good job by just playing the right shots to the right ball, timing them well, and running between the wickets. She then had no troubles keeping to their quick bowlers (who, to be fair, were probably just under 120 kmph at best).


I've thought the same as someone mentioned above, about why can't women play with men when it comes to sports such as Golf, Snooker, darts, etc. Even Ten-pin bowling. I worked at the Asian TenPin bowling championships, and saw how women bowling on the same lanes as the men managed to occasionally outscore their male counterparts. There was no difference in the playing conditions between men and women bowlers. Yet they were separated by gender, and there are no big mixed-bowling competitions around the world; always a men's and a women's division.

When I asked about this, the players told me that the reason this is done is because if they were mixed, you might get 3 or 4 women who end up in the top 10 of the competition, but overall if you rank the best 100, you'd only get around 30 women and 70 men. It's just too uneven that way. And it is very, very rare that the overall best bowler in these competitions is ever a women - 99% of the time the best bowler overall average-wise is a man. If the competition is mixed, not enough women would be qualifying and would be playing. By splitting by gender, you allow more women to participate.

This, I think, would be very true for cricket. Women would have to compete with men for the niche role of slow-but-accurate medium pacer, or small-but-skilful batsmen, slow-and-loopy-but-cunning spinner. Very few, if any, women would be able to make the cut as a quick bowler, or a big hitting batsmen. Even stuff like fielding at the boundary requires speed and a good throwing arm, and men are likely to be superior at that.

Still, I do think it should be allowed that if a woman wants to play grade/club and even domestic cricket with men, they should be allowed to try out, and if good enough, should be selected. Maybe allowed women to play with men domestically parallel to their own women's international and domestic cricket.

[Daemon]

Was her name Carolyn Singham?

[Гурин]

Originally Posted by zorax

Cricinfo chimes in through Raf Nicholson:

Guest Column : Why mixed cricket will not help develop the women's game | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

This is a piece that doesn't even deserve an answer.

Originally Posted by zorax

I've thought the same as someone mentioned above, about why can't women play with men when it comes to sports such as Golf, Snooker, darts, etc. Even Ten-pin bowling. I worked at the Asian TenPin bowling championships, and saw how women bowling on the same lanes as the men managed to occasionally outscore their male counterparts. There was no difference in the playing conditions between men and women bowlers. Yet they were separated by gender, and there are no big mixed-bowling competitions around the world; always a men's and a women's division.

When I asked about this, the players told me that the reason this is done is because if they were mixed, you might get 3 or 4 women who end up in the top 10 of the competition, but overall if you rank the best 100, you'd only get around 30 women and 70 men. It's just too uneven that way. And it is very, very rare that the overall best bowler in these competitions is ever a women - 99% of the time the best bowler overall average-wise is a man. If the competition is mixed, not enough women would be qualifying and would be playing. By splitting by gender, you allow more women to participate.

Of all the sports you named, snooker is about the only one where you cannot have a clear advantage by having a superior strenght, even in darts it helps to retain accuracy when you throw 23gr darts for 3 hours.

Let me bring out again the Polgar experiment. For decades there was this misconception in chess that women were mentally inferior to men (Bobby Fisher always refused to play against women. And against jews. But in his defence, must be said that he was an idiot). Then, Judith Polgar becomes a top 10 player, beating Kasparov (in a game where Kasparov used the Berlin defence) and a couple of years later she even qualified for the Candidates' Tournament. Yes, it could still be argued that she is the only woman in the top 100 of chess players, but the reason now seems to be more than the global ratio of male players to female players in chess is around 100 to 1 than 'they are mentally less equipped than men'.

Originally Posted by zorax

This, I think, would be very true for cricket. Women would have to compete with men for the niche role of slow-but-accurate medium pacer, or small-but-skilful batsmen, slow-and-loopy-but-cunning spinner. Very few, if any, women would be able to make the cut as a quick bowler, or a big hitting batsmen. Even stuff like fielding at the boundary requires speed and a good throwing arm, and men are likely to be superior at that.

Still, I do think it should be allowed that if a woman wants to play grade/club and even domestic cricket with men, they should be allowed to try out, and if good enough, should be selected. Maybe allowed women to play with men domestically parallel to their own women's international and domestic cricket.

I absolutely agree and that's the main point about Sarah Taylor playing for Sussex, women should be allowed to play both forms of the game, like U19 players. Yes, the vast majority will be able only to compete for those roles you mention (but then remember the Williams sisters serving at 210ks), but if they eventually outperforms men, why not? And given that they're usually more agile they might hold a natural edge in keeping or fielding in close catching positions (just like quite a few women play goalie in hockey).

I'd love to know the global difference in playing numbers between male and female cricketers (then, there is also HOW and WHY do you play, not only HOW MANY do play). I'm convinced that, altough not the only one, the biggest reason women are less competitive than men is because they are a lot less interested in the sport(s), so there's a much, much, much shallower pool of talent.

Then, if we go beyond that we might find the social (some might argue sociobiological) reasons and the relative pressures that by average make them less interested, but I don't think this is the place for a sociological lecture of a few thousand words to demontrate something that'll look obvious to lot of people.

[r3alist]

i think there has to be a reality check and we need to accept womens cricket for what it is - it will never be as powerful or as fast as mens cricket, that gap will always be there, so why are we trying to fit a circle into a square?

[wellAlbidarned]

Top cricketing women can definitely compete in mid-upper level mens club stuff, but it's just not going to happen at FC level.