Women's Cricket History: From the 1930s to the 1973 World Cup and Transformative Growth
The history of women's cricket from its origins in the 1930s through the first Women's World Cup in 1973 (two years before the men's) to the transformative professional era of the 21st century.
Women's cricket has a longer, richer history than most fans realise — and a more historically significant international tournament record than the men's game. The first Women's Cricket World Cup was played in 1973, two years before the men's World Cup in 1975, making women's cricket the pioneer of the international limited-overs tournament format. Understanding women's cricket's development from informal matches in the 1930s through the first World Cup through to the fully professional, globally televised sport it has become in the 21st century illuminates both the game's history and the structural inequalities it has fought to overcome.
Origins: The 1930s and Early Internationals
Women's cricket in England dates to at least the 18th century, with records of matches in the 1740s in Surrey. However, the organised, international form of women's cricket began in earnest in the 1930s. The Women's Cricket Association (WCA) was founded in England in 1926, and the first women's Test match was played between England and Australia at Brisbane in December 1934 — England winning by nine wickets in what was the first officially recognised women's Test. The England women's team toured Australia and New Zealand in 1934-35, establishing the bilateral international format. Progress was gradual: few nations had established women's cricket programmes, resources were minimal, and women cricketers received no payment or professional support. The International Women's Cricket Council (IWCC) was founded in 1958 to coordinate international women's cricket. Women's cricket in this era was entirely amateur, played by players who held day jobs and funded their own equipment and sometimes their own travel.
The 1973 Women's World Cup: Cricket's First
The first ICC Women's Cricket World Cup, played in England in 1973, predated the men's World Cup by two years and was organised largely through the initiative of Rachael Heyhoe Flint — England captain, cricket ambassador, and the driving force behind the event's creation. Heyhoe Flint's lobbying for a women's World Cup and her cultivation of sponsor support (Jack Hayward, a businessman, provided substantial funding) made the tournament possible when no ICC infrastructure existed for it. The tournament featured seven teams: England, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, a Young England XI, and an International XI. England won the tournament, defeating Australia in the final. The 1973 tournament demonstrated that women's cricket could be organised, competitive, and commercially viable at an international level — a proof of concept that would eventually influence the ICC's integration of women's cricket under its formal structures.
The Modern Era: Professionalisation and Growth
The transformation of women's cricket from an amateur, under-resourced pursuit into a professional sport occurred progressively through the 2000s and accelerated sharply in the 2010s. Key milestones: in 2003, England Cricket offered women players their first central contracts; Cricket Australia followed in 2014-15 with the most comprehensive professional women's cricket structure in the world, offering full-time professional contracts for national and state women players. The ICC Women's World Cup 2017 in England, won by England (defeating India in the final at Lord's), was the first women's cricket event to attract significant new audiences globally, with TV viewership figures that surprised broadcasters. The Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) in Australia, launched in 2015, became the first professional women's T20 league to attract substantial broadcast deals and crowds. India's women's team's run to the 2017 final — featuring Harmanpreet Kaur's extraordinary 171 not out in the semi-final against Australia — transformed the commercial and cultural landscape for women's cricket in India.
Frequently asked questions
Why did women's cricket take so much longer to professionalise than men's cricket, and is the pay gap in cricket still significant?
Women's cricket's slower path to professionalisation reflects broader societal patterns around women's sport, but the specific mechanisms — administrative exclusion, broadcasting economics, and governing body indifference — have cricketing particularity that is worth understanding directly. The structural barriers: women's cricket for most of its history operated entirely outside the commercial cricket economy. Men's cricket in the 20th century was organised around bilateral tours (funded by gate receipts and broadcast rights) and domestic competitions that generated commercial revenue from paying crowds. Women's cricket operated on none of these commercial bases: it received no broadcast deals, negligible gate revenue, and was administratively separate from the men's game (under the IWCC rather than the ICC until 2005). Without commercial revenue, professional contracts were impossible — players had to be employed elsewhere and play cricket in their spare time. This was a structural impossibility for growing the game at scale, not merely a cultural attitude. Broadcast economics: the transformation of women's cricket in Australia (Cricket Australia's professional contracts from 2014-15), England (ECB expansion of central contracts), and globally has been directly enabled by broadcast deals. The Women's Big Bash League attracted a multi-year deal from Seven Network Australia; the England Women's team's home international programme has sold to Sky Sports on terms that generate contract-funding revenue. These deals became possible when audience data — particularly in Australia — showed that women's cricket attracted large, commercially attractive audiences that advertisers wanted to reach. Commercial viability drove professionalisation, which in turn drove improved performance, which drove further audience growth: a virtuous cycle. The current pay gap: as of 2024, significant gaps remain. Top-earning women cricketers (Ellyse Perry, Smriti Mandhana, Meg Lanning, Beth Mooney at their career peaks) earn substantially less than comparable male cricketers — though the absolute gap between the women's game's highest earners and comparable men has narrowed dramatically in the 2015-2024 period. The structural reason the gap persists: broadcast rights revenue for women's cricket globally is still substantially smaller than for the equivalent men's competition, and player pay follows broadcast revenue. The gap is closing; it has not closed.