As triumphant homecomings by World Cup-winning teams go, it was pretty low key. There was no open-top bus parade, no Downing Street reception — just an air of understated satisfaction at a job well done as England’s women cricketers paraded the trophy at Lord’s cricket ground in London yesterday.
It was less than a decade ago that women were first admitted as members of the MCC at Lord’s and the ban on women in the pavilion was lifted. As victorious captain Charlotte Edwards posed with the trophy secured with victory over New Zealand on Sunday, she reflected on how far the sport had come and her hopes the win would act as a catalyst for further growth.
Edwards and her team will get the chance to show off in public next month in Taunton, southern England, where the women’s set up has its permanent base and the trophy will tour other county grounds as part of a campaign to further boost the women’s game.
PHOTO: AP
There were plenty of bleary eyes on show, but they were the result of an overnight flight back from Australia rather than any particularly raucous celebrations. ECB chairman Giles Clarke said that in contrast to their male Ashes winning counterparts four years ago, there were “no thousand-yard stares” the morning after.
Clarke, desperate for some good news after a winter dominated by criticism over links with Sir Allen Stanford and an under-performing men’s team, was also at the final and promised increased investment and profile for the women’s team.
The England team is the only one in the world that enjoys the benefits of semi-professional status, with several of their number — including captain Edwards — combining playing with coaching in schools under the ECB’s Chance to Shine scheme. The team has had a full-time head coach in Mark Lane since March last year.
Clare Connor, the ECB’s head of women’s cricket and a former England captain, said: “The opportunity this success has given us is huge and we have to have a clear plan about how we capitalize on that in terms of promotion.”
The team’s sponsorship deals are up at the end of this season and Clarke said it would seek separate sponsors for the women’s team that could invest in growing it.
Claire Taylor, who scored 324 runs in Australia and was named player of the tournament, said that it was important to make sure that clubs were ready for an influx of girls coming in at the bottom of the game.
UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, present at the Lord’s reception yesterday, said he hoped it would act as a “breakthrough moment” ahead of this summer’s ICC World Twenty20 in the UK, where the women’s semi-finals will take place alongside the men’s.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later
RSS