‘Residence of cricket continues to be a house principally for males’: Lord’s castigated for lack of Women’s Tests

The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) had been “alarmed” by the “truly appalling” indisputable fact that England Women have by no means performed a Test match at Lord’s, making the damning assertion that: “The ‘home of cricket’ is still a home principally for men.”

In a 317-page report printed on Tuesday, the ICEC highlighted the “public function” of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the personal members’ membership which owns Lord’s and stated that latest choices made by the membership’s members have despatched “a very public signal about the club’s values”.

Specifically, the ICEC really useful to MCC that the annual Eton-Harrow and Oxford-Cambridge fixtures ought to now not be staged at Lord’s after 2023, and that they need to get replaced by a nationwide Under-15 state college finals’ day for girls and boys, and a nationwide college finals’ day for males’s and girls’s groups.

“We respect and value many of the traditions of cricket generally, and Lord’s in particular, but not all,” the fee wrote in its report. “Some no longer have a place in contemporary Britain.

“Guaranteeing a tiny variety of schoolboys the suitable to play at Lord’s yearly when tens of millions of kids are denied that proper is totally unacceptable. So too is the truth that the schoolboys of two costly and elite establishments get to play at Lord’s yearly when the England Women’s nationwide group have but to play a Test Match there.

“The Oxford and Cambridge match has also had its time and should no longer be played at Lord’s. It sends a similar message of elitism, entrenching the position of certain institutions to which only a small minority of school pupils will gain access.”

England Men, against this, have performed two Tests and no less than one limited-overs worldwide at Lord’s yearly since 2000 – aside from the pandemic-affected 2020 summer season.

The fee highlighted the profitable try by MCC members to problem the choice of the membership’s committee to maneuver the “historic fixtures” away from Lord’s as “an illustration… of the obstacles placed in the way of those seeking to modernise the game”.

It added: “MCC may be a private members’ club, in which some members may resent ‘interference’ with their right to make their own decisions, but it is also a club that benefits from substantial amounts of money from the general public through ticket sales for major matches, with all the accompanying publicity and prestige.

“Those who argue for the continuation of the Historic Fixtures don’t appear to grasp the harm they’re doing to the repute of MCC and Lord’s within the public creativeness – compounding a view, whether or not honest or not, that MCC members are out of contact, elitist and unrepresentative of each the broader inhabitants and those that play cricket.

“As the game strives to become more inclusive, as it clearly must, decisions such as these at ‘the home of cricket’ do more harm than some people appear to realise.”

Lord’s was additionally singled out as the one main venue within the nation that doesn’t allow using musical devices, which the fee gave for example of “ways in which authorities have sought to sanitise the atmosphere at grounds”, saying the ban “had a disproportionate impact on ethnically diverse communities, particularly those from Caribbean communities”.

MCC have been contacted for remark.