Cricket, no not those ones, a duck (possibly a drake)

[lcakethereforeIam]

Cricket banning men from women's elite sport the rest the a free for all

https://archive.ph/gb0vR bypass the paywall

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2024/10/17/english-cricket-ban-transgender-elite-level-not-grassroots/

Edited to add link.

So where are they going to get these elite, professional women cricketers from if they allow men to discourage and potentially injure them at grassroots levels?

The lower levels will be covered by the ECB’s “disparity policy”, which covers any player deemed to have a significant strength, stamina or physique advantage over their opponents.

Wouldn't that potentially ban an actual female?

Also it seems men can still use the women's facilities.

Oh good God ECB WTF? So it's fine for 12 and 13 year old girls to be injured playing against adult men because they aren't elite players? Sports should be single sex at every level.

Exactly.

Yes - and case by case is inevitably going to result in edge cases and apparent unfairness.
And why is their starting point that is good in and of itself to allow male athletes to play in women's sport? The IOC.

At the amateur level girls and women can already play on men's teams, I've met many women playing on "men's" mid level county teams. It's not a contact sport, there just isn't the same issue as for instance rugby. I myself don't play but I scored for many years.

That's a cracking article from Oliver Brown. He's been a great advocate for women's sport and increasingly scathing about the Stonewall captured governing bodies currently trashing women's sport.

Such a disappointment from the ECB

There's nothing wrong with mixed sex sport if that's what people want and it's safe. But this is about women's sport - if there's a sport for women, then that's who it should be for. Not men claiming to be women - on the pitch or in the changing rooms and showers.

Would trans players even bother if they can’t advance to elite teams ?

Yes.

Yes, of course. The point is to be in a team labelled "women" or "ladies" and/or to be in a changing room similarly labelled. Validation.

An article in the Telegraph that pulls no punches

https://archive.ph/SHChy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2024/10/17/ecb-transgender-decision-elite-grassroots/

Oliver Brown has written very well on this. His final paragraph sums it up perfectly

What the ECB and so many similar bodies still neglect to note, through their obsession with the gospel of “inclusion”, is that the female category is itself an inclusion measure, enabling women and girls to pursue sport on equal terms. If you fail to defend this, then you forfeit the right to keep parroting the inclusion rhetoric that you claim to champion.

And, as usual, no mention of or consideration for women who believe that they are trans.

The ECB has managed to get it even more wrong than most. Not only the lack of consideration of grassroots level, they have actually managed to explicitly ban some women from the women's category.

Transmen - regardless of whether they are taking hormones or not - can play only in the open, not the women's games at any level

Transwomen, of course, can play in either at recreational level.

https://x.com/EnarialP/status/1847000658357997768?

DH is a member of the MCC. He’s furious about this, several of their members have been drawing attention to the cricketing authorities’ attitude to male born people 🍆 playing in womens cricket. One of them is a referee, and said he would just stop a match if a 🍆 turned up on the pitch of a woman , or worse, a girls’ game. A cricket ball thrown by a post pubertal man 🍆 at a twelve year old girl (and yes it could happen it’s called ‘ playing up’) could seriously injure her, or even worse if it hit her it the eye.

I asked DH why he thought they were doing it. He said 🤷🏻‍♀️ ‘ they must just think women are a nuisance, which is bizarre as they have invested millions in woman’s cricket - or maybe that’s why.’

Bloody hell! So much for inclusion.

Women who identify as non-binary are also excluded from women's matches.

Really? Must they play with the men?

No. they can do the teas.

😂😂

Good grief - I've just read that - it's completely incoherent.
But then as the basic premise is that men who claim to be women can't play in elite cricket (cos they're not women) but are magically women in grassroots sport, we shouldn't be surprised.

Good grief - I've just read that - it's completely incoherent.
But then as the basic premise is that men who claim to be women can't play in elite cricket (cos they're not women) but are magically women in grassroots sport, we shouldn't be surprised.

Testicles are only effective at elite level.

Agree. Anything else is just not cricket.

(Delighted nobody beat me to it!)

“Can” is doing some heavy lifting here. Should girls be obliged to play against men/lose their place in the team to men, because that’s what we’re talking about. If you’re a scorer you are presumably not receiving thunderbolt bowling from men, hook shots from batsman at head height etc and that ball is HARD.

Why does men in women's sport remind me of the old Always LikeAGirl advert? Do they play cricket "like a girl"?