Clare Connor’s MCC ascendancy a much-needed change to a long-laid prejudice

Australia might have been the bastion of Women’s cricket, with everything about their system spelling succession planning and single-minded determination, but there is a certain sense of charm in England’s Women’s Cricketers. From Rachael Heyhoe-Flint to Sarah Taylor, from Isha Guha to Charlotte Edwards, this has been an endless romantic sojourn, often revisited with every glorious achievement of their cricketers. But have they really got the due?

One of cricket’s biggest failures over the years has been the inability to acknowledge the prejudices in the sport and work strongly against it. Be it the prevailing racism or the male chauvinistic mindset that has strongly clouded the entire structure, the sport has utterly failed to make itself an inclusive affair. And while England, a multicultural country, needed to show the way, it eventually ended up becoming a massive disappointment. The truism of the dichotomy doesn’t only stay at the top, rather exists at the very fundamental level that makes the fabric of English Cricket.

Beyond throwing their support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, the ECB can hardly claim to have provided equal opportunities for the non-white and female cricketers, with Michael Carberry recently bringing the tyranny down by questioning people at the authority. That only changed recently, though, in 2019, when Women’s cricketers finally found their names on the Lord’s Honours Board - 20 years after the ladies were allowed in the Long Room as a member of MCC.

And that is the major reason why Connor’s appointment, as the successor of Kumar Sangakkara, who is the first non-white, non-English MCC president, is such an important one for all cricket fans. Connor, a dominant figure in the English women’s cricket management and truly a champion cricketer herself, has the opportunity to show the path for a brighter future when she takes over as the first female president in the MCC’s 233-year history.

“We often need to look back to see how far we’ve come. I made my first visit to Lord’s as a starry-eyed, cricket-obsessed nine-year-old girl at a time when women were not welcome in the Long Room. Times have changed. Now I find myself entrusted with this remarkable opportunity, the opportunity to play a part in helping MCC, cricket’s most influential club, to thrive and grow in an even more modern and inclusive future,” Connor had said after the appointment. 

In 2017, when Anya Shrubsole ran through the Indian lower middle order to land England a historic World Cup at Lord’s, there had been a huge crowd applauding each of her wickets as they would do for a James Anderson or Stuart Broad. However, her historic six-wicket haul that changed the definition of English women’s cricket became a slight footnote amid the glorious names. For starters, Lord’s is yet to host a Women’s Test match at the hallowed turf. Each time ECB talked about inclusiveness and cultural expansion, they were contradicting the long-standing notion they held against a particular gender. 

The peerless Raf Nicholson’s comments in that regard struck a chord. “Should it be more of a privilege for women to play on the hallowed turf than it is for men? I was particularly struck last summer when I went to watch the men's and women's 50-over Varsity matches, which since 2001 have been played concurrently at Lord's. Every year the men play on the main ground, and the women are consigned to the Nursery ground. You won't see a more visible symbol of the marginalisation of women's cricket than that,” Nicholson once wrote for Cricinfo. 

The sexist prejudices that have played its part in theory aside, people in power, unfortunately, have often also forgotten the diversity the women’s athletes have offered on a regular basis. Serena Williams won the Australian Open whilst pregnant with her first child; Alysia Montano competed in the USA Track and Field (USATF) Outdoor Championship while five months pregnant; Kerri Walsh Jennings was five weeks pregnant at the London Olympics where she won a gold medal in beach volleyball and Jhulan Goswami, at 37, is still one of the most feared bowlers going around. 

It is the strength some of these amazing women have shown over the years that should be enough to remove the kind of inequality mindset we have. One can only hope the step taken by Marylebone Cricket Club will act towards a bountiful future and the long toxic history will be forever buried in the distant outreach. Connor will not just be a footnote but a pioneer of another long history.