Men ‘need a head wobble if they think they help us’
England women’s player says male team ‘need education’ ‘If any one names 10 things they have done I’ll eat my hat’
England international Alex Hartley has followed up her Twitter spat with Rory Burns by criticising the men’s team for their lack of support for female colleagues. “If they truly believe they support women’s cricket, they need a head wobble. If any one of that team could name 10 things they do to support women’s cricket I’ll eat my hat.”
Alex Hartley says England’s male cricketers “need a head wobble” if they think they do enough to support the women’s team following her Twitter spat with Rory Burns.
The England international and broadcaster has called on the men’s team to do better in their promotion of the women’s game, after a misunderstood tongue-in-cheek tweet she posted 10 days ago revealed tensions between the two sides.
During England men’s two-day Test defeat by India on Feb 25, Hartley caused a stir when she joked on Twitter that the premature end at least meant viewers had time to watch the women’s one-day international against New Zealand. “Very disappointing attitude considering all the ‘boys’ do to support the women’s game,” England batsman Burns wrote, quoting Hartley’s post, with fellow players Ben Stokes and James Anderson liking the tweet before it was deleted.
Despite Hartley insisting she had meant no offence, Burns’s tweet prompted a social media pile-on, with trolls telling her “to go die” and abuse “coming from all angles”. Hartley said she did not think Burns knew the harm his words could do, but disagreed with the notion that the women’s team had the men’s full backing.
“If they truly believe they support women’s cricket, then they need a head wobble,” Hartley said. “If any one of that team could name 10 things that they do to support women’s cricket, I’ll eat my hat, because I genuinely don’t think they do. “I just think there needs to be education. We’ve seen Ashley Giles has now tweeted Tammy Beaumont, saying, ‘Well done on your series, you’ve been fantastic’. Yes, a tweet can be done in two minutes, but it shows that the men care. It starts with just showing public support. So, if Jimmy Anderson can tweet saying good luck, then why not?”
Burns has since been rebuked by the England and Wales Cricket Board for his tweet, but Hartley said she was “disappointed” by the governing body’s response. Hartley, 27, who last played for England in March 2019 and lost her central contract that year, revealed that the ECB emailed her after the Twitter spat “telling me I got it wrong”. “I felt like [the ECB] were sticking up for Rory, and not for me,” an emotional Hartley said, speaking on her podcast “No Balls” with co-host and England batswoman Kate Cross. “I wanted them to see it from my point of view as well.”
She told The Daily Telegraph that the episode had been a learning experience, and the BT Sport pundit had apologised to Burns and the men’s side for the misunderstanding. “I need to learn to word things better. Because I do support England men, I watch all cricket.
“The onslaught that it caused, he obviously hasn’t realised that’s a thing and hopefully it’s opened a conversation and there is going to be education around that – because I do genuinely believe the onslaught came because I am female.”