Men-xi Vs Women-xi

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

I really can't understand how a certain type of cricket, namely in this case women's cricket can be boring

Quite right womens cricket is not boring, it is still two teams of 11 players facing each other, like I said I used to watch it, and enjoy it, still cricket.

One thing though, when I watched it the last time, the women were playing in whites, but with skirts, I am sure they would have looked more the part in trousers.

Ern

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

Well, I never said women would stand a chance against Harmison, Wasim and/or anyone of that stature. What I did say though was that they could, and would, I beleive, be competetive when they're up against KB, SF & LJ Burger, Keulder, Walters, Karg, Kotze, Snyman and van Vuuren, which in case you don't know are all Namibian players. You are right about men being physically more dominant though. I dare not disagree with that part ;-)

Of course, there is no reason at all why women's cricket would be unexciting.

Cricket is cricket... but if you're going to bring the boundary in when the women are batting and push it out when the men are in... I still don't think it's going to even up the contest.

At a very basic level, fast female bowlers will not have the control of a male bowling at the same speed. Medium paced women bowling with more control will be considerably slower than the crafty bowling artists ICC players are used to facing.

I suspect (and I think most posters on this site would agree) that the ladies attack would be creamed all over the park.
Equally the ladies would struggle to get the faster male bowling away, because it is just that: "faster" than they are used to.

You'll have to come down a level or two. Try a Surrey Championship XI against an all World Ladies team. Or a minor counties team.

The thing is, if you play one level and then step up to another... you are obviously not as successful as you were at the lower level.

I just don't think in a one off match the Ladies could compete.

If you're going to give them the benefit of experience and play a full five match Test series, then I think it would be like watching England (read "The Ladies") v. West Indies (read "The Gentlemen") circa 1984. "Men against boys," as it was often called. Occasionally it looked like England had held their own and then the West Indies ran out clear winners. England's pop-gun bowlers couldn't tie down the fabulous West Indian batsmen and England's brittle batting couldn't keep out the terrifying West Indian attack.

As Ern says, it's not sexist... it's just a fact of life I'm afraid. Pace and power. Sorry Z.

[Zainub]

Agree about the trousers though, thank God I didn't see that my self. I would have hated it. Who was playing anyway?

Having seen how the talk drifts from sport to other things on the WTA tour, the last thing I would want to see is women playing cricket in minies. I'm totally against that. I can't stand all the talk about this bringing in more attention being a good thing, I hate (aboslutely, I know this is a stong word, but I guess my feelings on this are preety strong as well) the idea of selling any game cricket or other wise by those means.

[Zainub]

I totally understand what you are saying here Oliver. But I still like like to be optmistic. May be. You never know. May be when the faster men see us, they get distracted or something on those lines...;-)

But we're never going to have a match like that anyway, so we are basically discussing a nothing possibility here.

[Ernest]

I think it was England Vs New Zealand (women), it's a long time ago, it was quite good, we dont get these sports on BBC anymore.

If you have to promote womens cricket, with the players having to dress in minies, then forget it, it would cheapen the whole game.
I know womens Tennis players play in skirts, but that is ok, because it brings uniformity, with the men wearing shorts, and Tennis players would get overheated in trousers.

But in cricket, I think the women should wear trousers, because for one thing, it is uniform with the men, and to be honest it looks better.

Ern

[Andy Mellon]

Having watched (and umpired) a lot of women's cricket, I think that certain people aren't giving women's cricket enough respect. I've seen a decent women's club cricketer playing against a decent mens team, and the men give them short shrift and then either get out playing stupid shots or give away runs by trying to get a wicket every ball. In my opinion, you have to give the people you're playing against respect no matter how good or bad you perceive them to be.

Chances are, however, that Ernest and Oliver are right and the world womens team would get beaten, but I reckon they'd stand a good chance of beating an ICC team, Bangladesh or Zimbabwe mainly because some of the inexperienced players in these team may not give the women the respect they deserve.

[Oliver]

Here is something of want I meant about the relative powers of the sexes... here follows part of the history of a self-publicist and former tennis player who attempted to put women's tennis in it's place.


From an article about the match and its participants:


"At a time when women's tennis was not as prestigious as men's, the challenge from tennis champion Bobby Riggs to tennis champion Billie Jean King came to mean much more than a game of tennis. Amidst much media hype and many boasts from the challenger, the match came to be called "The Battle Of The Sexes"."

Bobby Riggs was a world champion tennis player in 1939 but his star had faded by the 1950s...

"Riggs was fifty-five in 1973...but took every chance he could to proclaim that women could never be the players men were, they were simply too weak - and they were just women.

"Riggs played and beat a champion tennis player named Margaret Court" then 31, on Mother's Day 1973 (6-2, 6-2) "and immediately challenged Billie Jean King saying, "I want Billie Jean King. . . . I want the women's lib leader!" Riggs boasted loudly that even the much younger Billie Jean King, at age twenty-nine, was no match for him, by mere virtue of his manhood.

"At the height of the women's rights movement, he was a perfect whipping boy for women's rights advocates, making a sexist spectacle of himself at every turn. He wore a tee-shirt that said 'Men's Liberation' and said if he was going to be a male chauvinist pig, he was going to be the number one male chauvinist pig. Rosie Casals, a tennis colleague of King's who would be a commentator at the big match said Riggs was "an old man who walks like a duck, can't see, can't hear and besides, he's an idiot."

"It was a sore spot with Billie Jean King and other women professional sports players that women were paid much more poorly than men. She had won 20 titles at Wimbledon and organized the Women's Tennis Association, a union of women players that improved their bargaining positions. King became the first woman to make more than $100,000 a year in tennis..."

"The match was held at the Houston Astrodome on September 20, 1973. It drew the largest ever live audience for a tennis match and got prime time TV coverage. 30,472 spectators filled the stadium and an estimated 50 million viewers watched on television. Riggs egged on the crowd by entering the stadium in a carriage pulled by women. Billie Jean King rode in on a red velvet litter carried by University of Houston football players in short togas. But when they hit the courts, the players were all business.

"Riggs did his best to finesse the ball, hitting lobs, drop shots and spins. In one of the most talked about events in United States sports history, Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in three straight sets of tennis by wearing him down with long rallies. The scores were 6-4, 6-3, and 6-3. After the game he graciously said, "She was too good, too fast. She returned all my passing shots and made great plays off them."


There is more, but this is enough.

Suffice to say that in 1985, aged 67, Riggs had another go at upsetting women's tennis when he partnered Vitas Gerulaitis (31) in a doubles match v. Martina Navratilova (29) and Pam Shriver (23). The men lost, but quite frankly if the result had gone the other way, women's tennis would have to have been disbanded.

[Oliver]

As an umpire Andy, how does the pace of women's bowling compare with the men?

[Zainub]

Plased to see I have support of some kind at least.

[Zainub]

That's a good contribution you have made O.