What’s the story?
In an inspired move to promote gender neutrality in sport, Cricket Australia has made positive changes to its naming convention, whereby both the men’s and the women’s cricket team will be referred to in the same manner.
The women’s team from Australia will now be named in the same way the men’s team does. The teams will be called Australian Women’s Cricket Team and Australian Men’s Cricket team respectively.
The Australian women’s team has been a consistently dominant side throughout the years and has managed to win the Women’s World Cup in 1978, 1982, 1988, 1997, 2005 and 2013. The change was made by CA this weekend to honour these continual achievements of its national players.
"This move may appear symbolic, but it does carry considerable weight," said David Peever, the chairman of CA.
"Cricket cannot hope to be a sport for all Australians if it does not recognise the power of words, and the respect for women that sits behind such decisions. As we saw on Saturday night, Australia's female cricketers are among the very best sport-people this country has ever produced.
“Australia has captured six of the ten World Cup titles, winning more than 87 percent of the matches it has contested, an astonishing figure. Today's team is ranked number one in the world across all three formats of the game,” he added.
In case you didn't know..
The women’s team was referred to as ‘Southern Stars’ up until now. The nickname didn't go well with most of its members who believed that it was time they got a denomination that’s as serious as the men’s team have had over the years.
The Women’s World Cup is set to commence in England later this month.
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The details
Peever explained that the strong message given out by businesswoman Ann Sherry in the Australian Cricket Conference of 2016 made the Cricket Australia stop and think about this naming issue that had been spoken about by many current and former Australian women cricketers in the past.
Sherry asked pointing and stirring questions in her speech, where she questioned whether CA was actually walking its talk of creating gender equality across all spheres of cricket administration and development in the country.
What next?
The Australian women’s cricket team will now walk onto their first World Cup match in England with a new official name. The name might be different but the team is sure to play with the same intensity that is associated with Australian sportsmen, men or women, across the country’s sporting spectrum.
Meg Lanning will be the captain of the side, which will play its warm-up match against South Africa before their group-tie against West Indies on June 26.
Author’s take
This move from Cricket Australia, albeit is a little late, is a welcome gesture following up to the big tournament. Not only will it set-up a good example for other cricketing boards across world cricket, but also boost the morale of its players going into a the World Cup as its defending champions.
It also is a positive change from CA in light of the recent feud between the board and the Australian Cricketers’ Association.
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