‘Women’s cricket is being lost’ – Why are Australia Women players demanding changes to their summer schedule?

Australia will play their first match on home soil since being crowned T20 World Champions this week. They will face Bangladesh in three ODIs – the first time Bangladesh have played a women’s bilateral series in Australia – before playing New Zealand in three T20Is later this month. Following that series, they won’t play another series at home until March, when they will play the ODI leg of the New Zealand series, concluding their home summer of nine matches.

With the WBBL set to begin at the end of October to run until early December, there will be no international women’s cricket or WBBL played in Australia during the school holidays – which take place in December-January. In contrast, Australia men will play the entirety of their four-match home Test series against New Zealand during the school holidays, as well as the whole of the Big Bash.

Senior Australia Women players such as Ellyse Perry and Beth Mooney, as well as head coach Shelley Nitschke, have spoken out over the schedule. “We’re not getting crowds, it’s not marketed well,” Beth Mooney told AAP this week. “There is no big-ticket item where people go 'the Australian women's team play here [at this time] every year. We want to be relatable athletes. And if we're not front and centre of the summer it makes it pretty difficult when it's meant to be a summer sport.”

Concern over women’s cricket’s scheduling comes against the backdrop of Cricket Australia’s plans to privatise the Big Bash. Currently, the WBBL and the BBL are played in separate windows, although private ownership could lead to Hundred-style double-headers, and see more women’s cricket played in the peak summer season.

Speaking to Wisden Women’s Cricket Weekly podcast, director of women’s cricket at the Australian Players Association, Holly Ferling, said: “The importance of scheduling is going to be so important moving forward, particularly for the women’s game. This is probably in and amongst all of the discussions around this venture [Big Bash sale], women’s cricket has, in my eyes, been lost a little bit.

“There’s such an opportunity here to do something amazing with the women’s game, but we haven’t had it discussed, and the schedule is a massive part of that.

“Currently, our Australian women are not playing in the peak or the heights of summer, as the Australia team let alone in Big Bash colours. I certainly empathise with anyone who is doing scheduling, it is such a tricky thing to do considering you’ve got the international schedule over laid, you’ve got competitions like the WPL that overlap with the men’s Big Bash as it currently stands. There are so many complexities to be worked through, but if we’re talking about unlocking the potential of our tournaments, the schedule has to be looked at.”

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