COVERED SPRING 2021

COVERED 36 TRENTBRIDGE.CO.UK From five-year-olds picking up a bat for the first time to the world’s best basking in the adulation of capacity crowds, women and girls’ cricket has never been in ruder health. And even after the unprecedented disruption of 2020, there is momentum aplenty across the professional and recreational game. STORY BY Matthew Freeman A GAME FOR ALL When Enid Bakewell, one of Nottinghamshire’s most famed cricketing daughters, won theWorld Cup in 1973, she and the rest of her teammates were still barred from playing at the ground known as the Home of Cricket. Lord’s began to make up for lost time 20 years later, playing host as England triumphed once again, before welcoming a sell-out crowd of 24,000 for the 2017 showpiece. And when some 86,000 people streamed through the gates to witness Australia’sT20World Cup victory in Melbourne, the extent of the progress that the women’s game had made was clearer than ever. While Bakewell and her contemporaries had to forge their own paths, hurdling innumerable obstacles along the way, in recent years the number of opportunities open to women in cricket has snowballed. For those looking to become the next Lucy Higham or Sarah Glenn – or simply out to enjoy the social side of the game – there have never been more avenues to pursue. “The buzzword at the minute is ‘dual pathway’,” says Gareth Isaac, Nottinghamshire’s Cricket Development Officer –Young People Clubs. “There’s the competitive strand and the recreational strand, and the journey for both starts with All Stars cricket at five or six years of age.