The big read
t has been a big week for New Zealand women’s cricket. Moves are afoot to raise the profile, playing and governance numbers, on the back of a report, Women and Cricket, Cricket and Women, slamming New Zealand Cricket’s treatment of the women’s game since the old New Zealand Women’s Cricket Council merged under the NZC umbrella.
Not before time, a point NZC have acknowledged. The sport has dropped the ball often enough down the years, but this spill has been a true clanger.
So let’s get this elephant out of the way first, Suzie Bates. The captain of the White Ferns, one of the game’s finest players and one of New Zealand’s most gifted sportswoman, what do you make of the state of the game?
“Initially when I heard the report was being done, I rolled my eyes and thought ‘ here we go again’,” Bates said.
“We have been exposed to a few promises and people saying the right thing at the right time over the years, and you’d just end up getting frustrated.
“This is the first time I have seen some positive change. I really think this time they’ve realised there are areas they’ve let slip and are now putting their hand up and saying they’ve got to do something about it from the top down.”
Bates knows of a clutch of players around her age, 29, who dropped out of the game. She cites the likes of Rebecca Rolls, Aimee Watkins, Emily Drum and coach Haidee Tiffen as players who had more to offer, but “they’d made a lot of sacrifices and could no longer afford to make those choices.
“At times we haven’t felt appreciated. At times you wonder at the value of what you’ve done on the park.”
When David White, the NZC chief executive, said this week he was certain professionalism in financial terms was coming to the women’s game, to match the professionalism the White Ferns display on the park, it would have been music to the ears, not only of the current players, but those of the recent past, who can only weep and wonder at why it hasn’t happened earlier.
Bates, without question is an adorn-