Cricket: Cricket-Clamour grows for more women’s tests among ‘Big Three’

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Two mouth-watering clashes in and around Mumbai this month involving the “Big Three” have whetted the appetite for more test matches in the women’s game and at least one cricket administrator has said he is pushing the idea.

Women’s tests have always been a rarity with only 147 played in the nearly 90 years since England faced Australia in the first, and they have become even scarcer since white-ball cricket started to dominate the game.

That India had not hosted a single test in nine years until this month reflected the reality that one-off tests only sometimes make up the numbers in multi-format bilateral women’s international series.

That could be about to change after India, cricket’s financial powerhouse, won women’s tests against England and Australia in December to spark renewed interest in the longest format.

“We didn’t get that many opportunities in the test format but hopefully the new generation will get many more games,” captain Harmanpreet Kaur said after India’s record-breaking victory over England.

Known for her power-hitting and aggressive demeanour, Kaur is one of the crowd-pullers in the women’s game but has played just five tests in her 14-year international career.

Kaur’s English counterpart Heather Knight, who has played less than a test a year since her international debut in 2010, said the desire for the women’s test game to flourish even shaped England’s approach to the game.

“We always feel as players when we play test cricket that we’re fighting for the format a little bit,” Knight said before the match against India.

“We want to make it entertaining and exciting for people to watch because we want test cricket to carry on.”

Australia captain Alyssa Healy has played eight tests in the 13 years since she first played international cricket, a paltry number compared to the 119 her uncle Ian featured in during his 11-year spell wearing the baggy green cap.

Even if Australia suffered their first ever loss to India in a women’s test at Wankhede Stadium, Healy said the game had been an “amazing experience” and called for test series rather than one-off games.

“It would create a real contest over three games,” Healy said.

“That would be an unbelievable experience for our group, and probably a true test of both sides’ abilities.”

Her words have not fallen on deaf ears.

Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley said he remained a “strong advocate” of women’s tests and saw sense in three-test series against teams like England and India.

“We’ll keep advocating for more test cricket as part of multi-format series,” Hockley told SEN on Wednesday.

“Maybe that’s something in the future that we can think about key marquee series going to three tests.”

(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by Nick Mulvenney and Muralikumar Anantharaman)