Why sometimes TV can damage women’s sport

The only Test match of the women’s Ashes is going on, although not on your television. The long format game, for women, died as a broadcast spectacle in Canterbury in 2015 when it was thrust into the spotlight far too early and the quality appalled any discerning viewer. england made 168 all out against Australia back then, including 436 dot balls and 34 maidens. Lydia Greenway lasted 137 balls and scored from just 10 in an innings totalling 16 runs. she was out ducking under a long hop that passed over her shoulder and hit the stumps on its way down. Women almost wholly play a limited-over game. The County Championship uses a one-day format, India have played two Tests in 11 years, while Pakistan, New Zealand and West Indies have not played a Test match since 2004. In the drive to promote women’s cricket in 2015, its champions inadvertently did enormous damage by putting on a turgid, unfamiliar event that wasn’t ready for public consumption. That is why the current Test is only available on a live stream via Cricket Australia. Women’s sport has to be allowed to breathe and develop, to find its audience and its feet, as the men’s game did. The first day score from North sydney — england 235 for seven — suggests a better spectacle. scoring is still quite slow, there were 21 maidens in 100 overs, but it was better than Canterbury, particularly as the format remains alien. In time it will get where it needs to be and broadcasters will want to show it again. That is how women’s sport wins. Projection for its own sake does more harm than good.