We Must Embrace And Not Waste Victory

Now is not the time to calm down, dear. The World Cup last year was hailed as a watershed moment for women’s sport.

- Isabelle Westbury

It was a summer in which everything clicked – the games were exciting, skilfully and often imaginatively executed, the grounds full and the coverage streamed to millions across the world. A culture shift was proclaimed. Excited speculation over what lay ahead soon ensued – there was momentum. England, the victors, quickly benefitted from the increased public interest.

Anya Shrubsole was nominated for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, before becoming the first woman to feature on the Wisden Almanack cover. Collectively, England won the BBC Team of the Year award. Appearances on panel shows, popular television programmes and well-attended sports events followed. The wheels were in motion.

By mid-November, however, the Ashes had finished and England’s women found a gap in their calendar. It was a welcome, and much-needed, break. However, as any teenager will wearily recite, Newton’s second law of motion dictates that the rate of change of momentum is directly proportional to the force applied. No force, or in this case no cricket, no momentum.

Signs of a return to the status quo emerged. Channel 9 produced an all male, all-white commentary team for the men’s Ashes. News coverage of Australia’s glitzy end-of-year black-tie event still, on the whole, failed to acknowledge women, beyond being on the arms of men. Women’s coverage, when it occurs, remains a footnote, hastily added in the most cost-efficient manner.