Development In Women’S Cricket: How Women’S Cricket Came Into Being!

Women’s cricket is a form of cricket that is played by Women. Today it is a very known phenomenon to most cricket lovers but very few people know that history of women cricket can be traced back to days in the Victorian Age. The first Women’s Cricket Association was found in 1926 in England and the first Women’s Cricket recored match was played between the England team and the Rest at Leicester in 1933. After that the women’s cricket team took a tour to Australia in 1934. Thus started the era of women’s cricket. But those were test matches that were being played. The Women's One-day Internationals first started in 1973 and that very year the first Women’s Cricket World Cup Competition was held. Ironically Women’s Cricket World Cup was held two years before the Men’s Cricket World Cup. The International Women’s Cricket Council was formed in 1958 by England, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, and South Africa and later included India, Sri Lanka and others.

Since then Women’s cricket kept its rhyhtm alive but till 2005 they were not officially under the unbrella of ICC. The Women’s cricket became officially intergrated with men’s cricket under the umbrella of the ICC in 2005. This feat came after the eight Women’s World Cup in South Africa which was won by Australia. Women’s cricket today is more organized and the sport is expanding day by day. With domestic women’s cricket being started in Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, the women’s cricket is now almost prevalent in all men’s cricket dominant countries.

After the official integration with ICC, Women’s cricket now started its development and in 2006 top ten nations of cricket played total of thirty two One Day International matches and three test matches. And that year also saw the debut of Women’s Cricket of the Year award at the annual ICC awards and Karen Rolton was the first one to pick this trophy. The development in Women’s cricket was really beyond traditional boundaries and really has been encouraging. These led to number of events where Women’s Cricket was played in different parts of the world. The encouraging integration between Member’s cricket boards and the role of ICC really helped the sport to reach its pinnacle that it enjoys today.

The first Women’s World Cup was staged in Sydney in March 2009 and this was the first women’s world cup that would be played under the sponsorship of ICC after it has merged with it. Besides organizing the cricket of women with such development and merging into ICC, there have been developments in the rules and regulations in the game. Though many don’t know but Women’s Cricket teams were the first to play Twenty20 cricket in 2004. Today Women’s cricket is also a promising career like Men’s cricket, though the sport has to go miles yet, but the half journey of it has really been promising.

Summary: History of women cricket can be traced back to days in the Victorian Age. The International Women’s Cricket Council was formed in 1958 by England, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, and South Africa. The Women’s cricket became officially intergrated with men’s cricket under the umbrella of the ICC in 2005