England Women cricketers are to obtain the identical match charges as the lads’s group after an exciting Ashes summer season boosted their profile.
The England and Wales Cricket Board has introduced funds to Heather Knight’s aspect are being introduced into line with these made to Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and their teammates after file crowds and elevated viewing figures.
The enhance will take impact instantly, beginning with this week’s Vitality IT20 sequence in opposition to Sri Lanka.
ECB chief government officer Richard Gould mentioned: “This summer’s thrilling Metro Bank Women’s Ashes series demonstrated how women’s cricket is continuing to grow at pace in this country, with record attendances and TV viewing.
“Growing the ladies’s and women’ sport is a key precedence for us and in recent times we have now significantly elevated funding each in constructing a home girls’s construction to provide the gamers of the longer term and in rising participant rewards.
“In the years ahead, we will continue to invest ahead of revenues. We are currently considering all the recommendations made by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, but equalising match fees is one immediate step we are pleased to make now.
“We all need cricket to be the group sport of alternative for feminine athletes and – with the investments we’re making and more and more profitable alternatives around the globe – we’re seeing cricketers change into among the highest incomes feminine athletes in UK group sports activities.
“However, we know there is still much further to go as we ultimately strive for equality across the game.
“As we proceed to develop girls’s cricket, we’ll proceed to deal with making thought of investments that stretch far-and-wide throughout the ladies’s cricket buildings, delivering a thriving, worthwhile and future-proofed sport.”
A total of 110,00 people watched the drawn summer series, which saw Australia retain the Ashes in front of crowds of 19,527 at Edgbaston, 20,328 at the Kia Oval and 21,610 at Lord’s which set successive new records for a home England Women bilateral fixture, while 23,207 tickets were sold for the five days of the Trent Bridge Test.
Broadcast viewing figures of 5.3 million, in addition to 47 million video views, were double those in 2019.
England skipper Knight said: “It’s actually vital that we proceed to drive the ladies’s sport ahead and it is implausible to see equal match charges for England Women and England Men.
“The direction of travel for the women’s game has always been the most important thing, creating a sustainable product that people want to watch and play and I’m sure this will make cricket an increasingly attractive sport to girls and young women as we continue to grow the game.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
