HeathDavisSpeed
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I'll ramble a bit here, but here's my experience.
My wife was a much better cricketer than I was. I'd play on a Saturday, then I'd go and watch her play on a Sunday (this was in the UK). I watched her team play teenage boys; games umpired by the boys' fathers who'd routinely rip off the women. A common catch call was "That's a great delivery son, out every day of the week!" when you could tell from any angle that the ball was heading down leg or had hit the bat. After a few weeks of this, I went for my umpiring qualification and umpired every game - often from both ends - unless there was another qualified umpire around. When actually given an even chance in a game, the standard of the women improved steadily. My wife ended up training with Hants before we decided to move.
Then we moved to NZ. She went to play for a club team who batted her at 11 and didn't let her bowl. I referred to a colleague of mine who died earlier this year who was a big cricket fan. She played for Queensland (her record is on Cricinfo, though their photostock of her has the wrong person assigned). She moved back to NZ and again, her club team batted her at 11 and didn't let her bowl.
The lack of attention and value placed on women's cricket has led to this bullshit cliquey environment. It was also the source of the unfair practices that took place in club cricket in the UK. People just weren't taking it seriously. My wife didn't even bother playing a full season that year we moved to Wellington. It was the same for my former colleague.
Anything that can bring a reasonable standard of professionalism and set higher expectations of what players, coaching and administration should be doing is a huge step forward. Sure, the quality hasn't been great, but is it any surprise when this sort of unprofessionalism dictates practice?
One final thing - my 8 year old is vaguely interested in cricket. She'll play backyard cricket with myself and 16Tins when we get a game together. But, now she has a choice, she doesn't seem interested in coming to the cricket anymore (I took her loads when she was a littl'un). When the women's world cup came to Wellington though and we showed her the material she was interested and we went to a game or two. If taking her to women's games continues to help her develop her interest, then maybe she'll be interested in playing or even, in the future when she's an adult, going to watch cricket with her family. Failing to show any interest in engaging 50% of the population in the game is costing NZC.
This additional payment won't be a negative to the NZC accounts in the long term and it should have a massively positive impact on the professionalism and quality of the women's game. Your NBA/WNBA comparison absolutely fails to recognise the interest that women have in the NBA - somewhat because of the WNBA and the support for girls in playing at School.
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