The Women's Cricket Revolution: 2010 to 2025
How women's cricket transformed from semi-amateur pastime to professional sport — the T20 boom, the WPL, full-time contracts, and the players who drove the change.
The Semi-Amateur Era Before 2014
Before the 2014 Women's World Twenty20, women's cricket was largely semi-professional in even the strongest cricketing nations. England's women players received part-time contracts (around £15,000 annually) that required many to hold second jobs. Australia's central contracts were marginally better but still modest. India's women cricketers were dependent on state association support that varied enormously. The Women's Cricket Association and national boards provided a framework, but the commercial infrastructure — broadcast deals, sponsorships, merchandise — simply did not exist at scale. Players like Meg Lanning, Charlotte Edwards, and Mithali Raj were genuinely world-class athletes competing in near-amateur conditions.
The ICC Women's World T20 and Broadcast
The 2016 Women's World T20 in India was the turning point. Played in India — the world's largest cricket market — the women's tournament received genuine broadcast coverage, large crowds, and media attention for the first time. The 2020 Women's T20 World Cup final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground drew 86,174 spectators — a record for a women's cricket match and one of the largest crowds for any women's sporting event in history. Australia beat India by 85 runs. The broadcast numbers confirmed what administrators had suspected: given exposure and context, audiences would watch women's cricket in large numbers. The commercial case for professionalization became undeniable.
The WPL and Franchise Revolution
The Women's Premier League, launched in 2023, was the decisive professionalizing moment for women's cricket globally. Modelled directly on the IPL, it provided a franchise T20 league with genuine auction salaries (top prices of ₹3.4 crore at first auction for Smriti Mandhana), broadcast deals, and international participation. Australia, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and other nations' players were suddenly receiving IPL-equivalent exposure and salaries. The SA Women's Super League (2023) and The Hundred Women's competition (2021) completed a picture where the top women's players — in England, India, Australia, and South Africa — could earn professional wages without holding second jobs. This was simply not true before 2021.
Key Players of the Era
Meg Lanning (Australia, retired 2024) is the era's defining figure: 7,000 ODI runs, 6 World Cups won, the most complete batsman in women's cricket history. Ellyse Perry (Australia) is the greatest women's all-rounder: over 3,000 ODI wickets, 1,000 runs, unprecedented dual excellence. Smriti Mandhana (India) became women's cricket's first genuine celebrity — IPL-level recognition, brand endorsements, and social media following comparable to male cricketers. Heather Knight (England) led England through a professionalization period: the 2017 home Ashes, the 2023 WC. Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka) showed that women's cricket excellence could come from beyond the 'big three' — she was consistently ranked the world's best women's T20 batsman.
What's Changed and What Remains
The pace of change in women's cricket since 2020 is genuinely unprecedented in any sport. Pay parity with men (reached in Australia in 2022 for national contract values) was inconceivable in 2010. Full multi-day Test matches — a format that was nearly extinct for women — are returning, with England vs Australia playing a full five-day Test in 2022. However, inequality remains: women's cricket in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and most Associate nations remains severely underfunded. The global broadcast ecosystem still depends on India and Australia to drive women's cricket revenues. The revolution is real but incomplete — and its continued progress depends on whether the commercial gains of the 2020s are distributed to the sport's global base, not just its commercial centres.