‘ I think I could see the turning point … people just came for good cricket ’: The Women's Big Bash League,The Hundred and female cricketers’ experiences of professionalisation

Abstract

In this article, we discuss elite female cricketers’ experiences of playing during a period of rapid organisational and commercial change. As the first article to centre research specifically on the women who are playing cricket through this period, we draw on the wider lens of research on gender and professionalisation to document how elite female cricketers experience the global game. Utilising semi-structured, online interviews with elite female cricketers who have experience of playing in The Women's Big Bash League and/or The Hundred, we explored issues of visibility; career development; skills development; and the revolutionising potential of changes in the current and future game. These findings highlight both the many positive experiences of elite women in the game and the distinct developmental trajectories of the professionalisation of women's sport relative to the men's game. Our research highlights how professionalisation entails both divergent and convergent processes in women's sport, and thus how such processes are both geographically and sports-specific in character.

Keywords

commercialisation women's cricket franchise leagues gender equity professionalisation

Drawing on examples from franchise cricket, and the Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) and The Hundred as case studies, this article explores elite women cricketers’ experience of playing during a period of rapid professionalisation. The precursor of the WBBL, while initially a state competition rather than a franchise tournament, was established in 2007 and quickly became the primary professional women's cricket competition in Australia. This franchise tournament consists of eight teams, with women playing in the league employed through a draft system and potentially earning over $100,000 (Guardian, 2023). Initially separate from the men's Big Bash League, the women's game was subsequently branded alongside the (men's) as the Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) in 2015–2016.

The Hundred was launched in England in 2021. The adoption of the archetypal American franchise model was unprecedented for such a mainstream and traditional British sport. Additionally, The Hundred fundamentally challenged an unwieldy county structure which had been the bedrock of English cricket for 150 years. The re-organisation was built on and clearly inspired by the economic and global success of the Indian Premier League or IPL (Gupta, 2011), which had already spawned imitators in Abu Dhabi, Australia, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Pakistan, and South Africa.

Distinctly, however, The Hundred also evidenced significant strides towards greater gender equality. Each Hundred franchise was required to have both a men's and a women's team, and matchday tickets invariably provided access to both men's and women's fixtures, at the same venue, on the same day. Men and women also played on the same pitches, addressing the historical trend of women being forced to play in inferior conditions or stadia (Velija and Malcolm, 2009), although the boundaries were often retracted for the women's game to facilitate greater parity in scoring between the two games. While considerable inequalities in pay were factored in (on average men's contracts are worth four times more), men and women competed for equal prize money, providing a symbolic (although critics have said tokenistic) marker of aspirations towards equality (Fletcher et al., 2023). Promoted as a single competition, The Hundred avoided the gender marking of previous tournaments such as the WBBL.

Not surprisingly, the WBBL and The Hundred have already attracted academic attention. Parry et al. (2021) were somewhat sceptical about how progressive the WBBL was, drawing on the concept of gender-blind sexism to discuss the fan experience of attendees. In contrast, The Hundred seems more gender progressive. While initial research located these developments of The Hundred within the ‘digital turn’ in leisure and discussed the resultant conflicts between format innovation and the historical traditions of the game (Fletcher et al., 2023), an examination of perceptions of The Hundred via online surveys and focus groups found that: (1) that female fans have been attracted to, and have had largely positive experiences of The Hundred; and (2) that the competition has increased the audience for, and reduced negative stereotypes of, women's cricket (Nicholson et al., 2025). Research drawing on interviews with a wide range of stakeholders in the game has also highlighted how the impact of the introduction of The Hundred has been gendered (Fletcher et al., 2024). Specifically, this work argued that while The Hundred has had a tangible impact on the professionalisation of women's cricket, it has been ineffectual in reducing gender inequalities across the sport. Significant disconnects persist between The Hundred and the regional domestic cricket structure, while economic disparities, issues of social class, and ethnic diversity persist across the women's game.

Building on prior research, this article focuses on the experiences of elite, female, international, and often migrant players. Drawing on interviews with participants who had competed in the WBBL and The Hundred, this article develops our understanding of the impact of the professionalisation of women's cricket on players. In so doing, it specifically addresses Fletcher et al.'s (2024: 1028) conclusion that ‘future studies are needed to understand in more depth the perspectives and experiences of female players’. Before outlining our methodology and presenting our findings, we provide some broader context to the commercialisation and professionalisation of women's sport, and of cricket in particular.

The professionalisation of women's sport

While commercialisation and professionalisation are sometimes used synonymously in the literature, they are distinct concepts. The commercialisation of sport was first analysed by Stone (1971), who sought to delineate the changes that arose when play for intrinsic purposes became play for extrinsic reward, or ‘dis-play’. Commercialisation – the organisation of sport for income generation – entails several strategies including the structuring or design of events; the direct generation of revenue at or from these activities; and deferred income generation through broader brand and identity-building activities. Professionalisation – narrowly conceived – refers specifically to the payment for the display of athletic performance or employment. While frequently directly connected – that is, the income from commercialisation is often a pre-requisite to professional employment – the nature of this link is historically and culturally variable. Consequently, we should be sensitive towards the different trajectories of the commercialisation and professionalisation of sport in general, of cricket in particular, and as experienced by males and females, respectively.

Recent developments in women's sport force us to consider a more nuanced approach. Previous sociology and management research on professionalisation focused on men's sport (Bowes and Culvin, 2021) and thus operated through a kind of gender-blind lens. For example, Dunning's (1999) discussion of the professionalisation of sport gives little mention of the gendered character of this and related processes. Scholarship therefore effectively ‘normalised’ the sense that women's sport was both exterior to or inferior within sport as income was assumed to follow, and be a marker of, quality. A more accurate analysis is that professionalisation processes look very different in women's compared to men's sport, and are also different depending on the particular sport and the specific location in which the sport is played.

Indicatively, Bowes and Culvin (2021) suggest the indicators of increasing professionalisation in women's sport include the adoption of formal administrative structures, equitable policies and practices, and the contracting of athletes. The administrative structures of domestic women's sport and international sporting organisations are the oldest markers of professionalisation in women's sport. For example, the All-England Women's Hockey (AEWHA) was established in 1895 (Nicholson, 2022), while the Women's Cricket Association managed the women's game since 1926, and the International Women's Cricket Council led the international game since 1958 (Velija, 2015). Despite these organising bodies having a global impact in running their sports, they ceased to exist independently post-merger with men's organisations (Velija et al., 2012).

In contrast, equitable policies for commercial opportunities, and paid contracts providing a baseline of economic security, have been absent from the professionalisation process experienced in most women's sport. Research consistently suggests that low pay and poor short-term contracts impact women athletes’ careers (Marshall et al., 2024; Taylor, 2020). Research on professional female football players in the Football Association Women's Super League found that working conditions led to precarious and insecure work (Culvin, 2021). Tjønndal et al.'s (2024) research also suggests that despite the recent growth in support and more general popularity and interest, the financial conditions for women footballers are much less profitable and stable than for men. In practice, many women experience a continuum of amateurism, semi-professionalism and professionalism across their sporting careers, and there remain few complete professional women's sport leagues across the globe (O’Brien et al., 2022).

The contracting of women athletes differs from that of men due to the alignment of professionalisation and player migration (Agergaard, 2024). While women have often migrated to play elite sport, their motivations have been less focused on financial gain (mainly due to a lack of opportunity). Rather, as Botelho and Agergaard (2011) note, women have frequently migrated for their own professional development and love of the sport. In exploring the rapid change and professionalisation of women's sport, and in this context, franchise cricket, it is necessary to consider the way gender shapes sport migration experiences, as well as how migration is influenced by gender, race and class (Hossain, 2020). These experiences of migration are also impacted by the broader environment of precarious work for female athletes, defined as non-standard, flexible and exploitative working conditions, brought about by low wages and contractual insecurity (Manolchev et al., 2023).

An additional gendered dimension of professionalisation is the marginalisation of female coaches (Marshall et al., 2024; Nicholson, 2024). As coaches involved in women's sport become more highly paid, coaching positions become more attractive to males, and those making hiring decisions place a greater premium on experience in order to mitigate the risk of ‘failure’. The contraction of opportunities for female coaches has most significantly and widely been documented in the NCAA post Title IX (Staurowsky et al., 2022).

Finally, aligning with these broader changes, it may be that female athletes experience distinct pressures. For example, a study of the Women's National Basketball League in Australia by Marshall et al. (2024) showed how women experience tension between professionalism and increased performance expectations. Such pressures may be heightened by an awareness that their roles are socially pioneering. This further impacts the sport-life balance experienced, and indeed this has been evidenced in relation to the mental health of female athletes, including cricketers (Ogden et al., 2026).

Gender and the commercialisation and professionalisation of cricket

The gendered specificities of the commercial-professional connection are especially apparent when one compares the historical trajectories of men's and women's cricket. Male professional cricketers first emerged via aristocratic patronage and before commercialisation. Despite conflicts and contradictions between paid and unpaid players, the hegemony of the amateur establishment only gradually eroded over the course of the 20th century, with the annual Amateur versus Professional cricket fixture in England enduring until 1962. Even after this, however, most male professionals sought alternative or additional work to support themselves outside of the regular playing season.

Commercialisation further drove the re-design of the game's format. Starting in 1963, limited-overs or one-day cricket was established. Scheduled on a Sunday for spectator convenience and televisual appeal, this created new and lucrative revenue-raising opportunities. This, in turn, provided funds for overseas professional players and facilitated a rapid growth in international player migration into the English game. Commercialisation further intertwined with globalisation through the development of One-Day Internationals (ODIs), the establishment of a quadrennial Cricket World Cup (first played in 1975 in England), the challenges posed by Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket (1977–1979), and so-called ‘Rebel Tours’ (1982–1990) designed to break the sporting boycott of Apartheid South Africa. In 1998, the ICC established the Champions Trophy, a kind of ‘mini-World Cup’ to be played between ‘full’ World Cups.

In 2003, following various other format experimentations, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) introduced the Twenty20 or T20 format. It quickly became commercially successful, leading to the establishment of domestic leagues around the world, but, most notably, in 2007, the IPL. Coincidentally, this was the year of the first T20 Cricket World Cup and, importantly for the future of the game, it culminated with India defeating historic rivals Pakistan in the final. This victory generated huge interest in India, rapidly promoting the IPL to become one of the most lucrative sporting competitions in the world (Gupta, 2011).

Domestic T20 leagues – such as the Big Bash League (BBL) in Australia – became the most economically profitable forms of the (men's) game in each of the major cricket-playing nations. The game's geographical spread and the compressed nature of the format enabled events to be scheduled across the calendar (Malcolm, 2021). Certain players came to be in such high demand that they could renegotiate the contracts traditionally held with clubs and countries. These ‘portfolio’ players (Rumford, 2011) moved around the world playing in a series of short-form competitions, often foregoing the opportunity to represent their home nation to secure the higher economic rewards available from playing in multiple domestic T20 leagues.

The chronology of the commercialisation of women's cricket is drastically different. The first paid women's team was the Original English Lady Cricketers – a team drawn mainly from working-class communities, playing stage-managed exhibition matches and tours (Velija, 2015) – which survived for just two years in the 1890s. There were a few other significant developments until 1971, when (two years before the men) a limited-overs World Cup was established. This, however, did not usher in significant changes in terms of professionalism or finances for many years, with commercial growth first becoming evident in Australia through what would become the WBBL.

In England, the opportunity for women to be paid to play cricket did not become fully realised until 2014, when the ECB awarded 18 England players contracts, primarily to play T20s and ODIs rather than the traditional, longer format of test cricket. Subsequently, a 50-over-a-side competition for The Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy was launched in 2020, and a T20 competition – The Charlotte Edwards Cup – was introduced in 2021. The prize money for this was only £7500, plus some additional individual awards for Player of the Year. The women's game in India lagged even further behind, with the Women's Premier League only established in 2022, a year after The Hundred.

Charting the professionalisation and commercialisation of cricket demonstrates just how recent these opportunities for women to be paid to play cricket, even at the elite level, are. Globally, this change has also not been linear, consistent or available to all. This is captured in the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA, 2022) report on Women's Professional Cricket Global Employment. The report, which discusses 400 player responses from 11 countries, highlights that while there has been an increase in national central contracts, there was a noticeable difference between well-resourced and poorly resourced nations. It also notes that cricket is often an insecure or precarious career for players. Indicatively, 86% of women have contracts of less than 12 months.

Despite a growing research base, the impact of (semi) professional sports spaces on female athletes is not yet fully understood or explored. More research informed by women directly experiencing playing professional sport is needed (Fletcher et al., 2024). It is with this in mind that we embarked on this research to understand how those who play women's cricket at the elite and franchise level experience the changes that have occurred through the professionalisation of the WBBL, The Hundred and more broadly (Fletcher et al., 2024).

Research methods

Ethical approval for the study was granted by the first and second authors' education institution (ref. 2023-14856-14457). The inclusion criteria were female players who had competed in the WBBL or The Hundred, and a total of eight female cricketers (aged 20–33 years) were successfully recruited into the study. An attempt to enrol current players from a range of different countries was successful, and consequently, the sample included players from seven different nations and regions. Among the participants, six were in the WBBL, seven had played in The Hundred and five in both.

While six interviewees subsequently played in the Women's Premier League (WPL), the analytical focus of this study was intentionally placed on the WBBL and The Hundred. At the time of data collection (June–August 2023), the WBBL and The Hundred represented the most established and influential franchise-based professional environments in women's cricket. Importantly, both leagues also play a central role in facilitating international player migration and sustained cross-cultural interaction, which was a key concern of this study. In contrast, the WPL, first played in March 2023, was still in its inaugural phase during the research period, making it less suitable for assessing visibility, career and skill development and longer-term impact. Also being bigger (with eight teams each compared to five in the WPL), the WBBL and The Hundred provided a wider empirical basis for examining players’ experiences of professionalisation during a period of rapid but uneven global change in women's cricket.

A semi-structured interview schedule (Sparkes and Smith, 2013) was devised based on a synthesis of Author 1's personal experience (see below) and a review of literature encompassing the development of both cricket and women's sport with particular focus on recent commercialisation and professionalisation processes. The women were asked to discuss their personal routines as professional athletes, their performance expectations, their athlete mindset and their short and long-term goals while actively playing. This relatively cross-sectional strategy, allied to a distinctly empathetic ‘insider’ positionality (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016), ensured that the interviewing process could faithfully reveal the perspectives of participants who were centrally located in the broader development of the sport.

The interviews were conducted through Microsoft Teams between June 2023 and August 2023. Online interviews were chosen partly because the participants were geographically dispersed, but also because this proved to be the participants’ preferred format. The interviews lasted between 20 and 45 min.

Access to participants for this study was facilitated through Author's 1's involvement in elite women's cricket. This offered a unique position as Author 1 has played professional cricket in India for over 12 years and thus has longstanding relationships within the international women's cricket community, including personal contacts with those who had played in The Hundred and WBBL. This insider status (Rich and Misner, 2017) both enabled purposive sampling and aided trust and rapport building during the interview process. The first author was an insider (Wiser, 2018) in the world of elite women's cricket. This enabled them to reflect on their own experiences with the players, allowing participants to speak openly and reflectively about sensitive issues such as pressure, career precarity, mental wellbeing, and professional identity. During the interviews, the author was aware of their positionality and the complexities that being an insider brings (Scott and Soares Moura, 2024); in this context, being an insider was a clear enabling factor, as without this, the research may not have recruited players with such rich experiences of playing in franchise cricket. Beyond this, the insider status brought a sense of collective understanding to the interviews Author 1 could ask questions and probe experiences in a way that enabled interviewees to feel understood. Author 1 has experienced firsthand how T20 leagues have changed everything from training methodologies to financial independence for players and thus brought a shared understanding of training environments, franchise leagues, and the evolving demands of elite women's cricket to the interviews.

Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed thematically to discover key codes and themes. Using Braun and Clarke (2006) as a guide before beginning a thematic data analysis, the transcription of the data was read and re-read, noting interesting and relevant information (Braun and Clarke, 2006). A large amount of data was collected during the analysis, which was organised into four overarching themes in relation to the objectives of the study. The themes were developed and refined as a team; this enabled the authors, as insiders and outsiders (Dwyer and Buckle, 2009), to discuss and agree on the themes based on the re-reading of the data. The results and discussion are structured around four themes: (1) visibility; (2) career development; (3) player skill development; and (4) revolutionising women's cricket and future impact. In order to protect the anonymity of respondents, we only identify them by participant number, and we restrict the amount of biographical information provided in our contextualisation of data extracts.

Results and discussion

Visibility

The advent of franchise leagues has significantly boosted the visibility of the women's game worldwide. However, unlike traditional tournaments where women's events were often separate or treated as sideshows, one of the most revolutionary aspects introduced by The Hundred is the more direct alignment of the women's competition with the men's, in terms of scheduling, branding, and billing. Teams are jointly sponsored, the major cricket venues are shared, and prize money (if not pay) is set equally. The success of this format is indicated by the record attendances and viewership, but it also had a tangible impact on the players’ experiences. One player from India recounted the impact of the double-header approach:

To have the double-headers, the motive is to engage more audience, media and sponsors in order to promote cricket, especially women's cricket. I remember the first season of The Hundred – we were playing before the men's team. In the first innings there was not much crowd, but a lot of people had come early for the men's game, so they got to watch the second innings and they started filling in the stadium. (Player 7)

This experience of real-time feedback – seeing crowds grow during their games – was, for many players, evidence that visibility would fuel popularity. By the second year of The Hundred, Player 7 noted, fans were arriving specifically for the women's matches, not just because they arrived early to watch the men's match. The view among nearly all interviewees was that the success of these double-headers in The Hundred highlights a potential blueprint for the future: integrated events can normalise women's matches as an equal part of the cricket spectacle, thereby accelerating moves towards gender parity in the sport. This structural approach to inclusion aligns with Fletcher et al.'s (2023) analysis of The Hundred's mediatisation.

Interviewees consistently spoke of improvements in public recognition, with several athletes describing the stark contrast compared to their earlier careers. One player reflected,

When I started playing cricket I didn’t even know if there was a women's team… I didn’t know a single name of any [female] cricketer. It's been fifteen years now and I feel we’ve come a long way. We are equally recognised and appreciated. (Player 7)

This testimony highlights the generational shift – from a time when women's cricket was nearly invisible in the media to where we are now, with female cricketers as nationally known figures. This is similar to other women's sports. As Bowes and Culvin (2021), observe that women are now getting far more media visibility as the professionalisation of women's sports develops. Moreover, almost all interviewees welcomed the amplified attention from media and fans,

I could see like, okay, this is like the turning point for women's cricket – that people are actually seeing women's cricket and giving it that importance and not caring that there's a men's game after … they just came for good cricket. (Player 1)

Player 1 made this observation after reflecting on the experience of playing in front of a large crowd attending a women's Hundred match. While professionalisation has increased the visibility of women's sport more generally, the quote underlines the critical importance of co-staging in The Hundred and how, as noted by Nicholson et al. (2025), this helps strengthen fans’ connections with the players. While not explicitly elicited, and perhaps reflective of their relatively privileged position, none of the players in this research discussed others who were less visible or how visibility is shaped by broader identities such as sexuality or race (Hossain, 2020). Instead, players emphasised how playing in front of large crowds and television audiences positively impacted their confidence and profile.

However, as Marshall et al. (2024) note, greater visibility comes with new pressures. As women's cricket becomes more professional, players face higher performance expectations and public scrutiny,

It's good that you’re getting fame … but for an international cricketer with a lot of media coverage … every action, every move is emphasised. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not so good – especially when you make mistakes. The last thing you want is the whole world talking about your mistakes … it is very tough … You just want to forget about it. (Player 1)

Increased media exposure comes with professionalisation, and while having significant economic benefits, can create mental and emotional challenges for athletes (Beams, 2022). Several players noted that playing in front of packed stadiums (in The Hundred rather than the WBBL) is ‘a dream’ and ‘energising’, yet the constant spotlight means ‘every performance is creating a moment for fans … it's a big opportunity to inspire … but never a dull moment’ (Player 7). The need to perform at all times – to constantly dis-play (Stone, 1971) – is now part of the athlete's mindset in women's cricket but creates new, or rather amplified, emotional demands. Visibility, performance demands and player pressure have become highly interdependent.

Career development

The emergence of franchise leagues has not only increased the visibility and thus commercial value of women's cricket, but is also significant in shaping the career trajectories of its athletes. With more money in the sport, many women cricketers can now pursue full-time careers, no longer needing side jobs to support themselves. ‘Twenty20 cricket has become more professional … and many players in the domestic structure do not have to do part-time jobs because of these leagues’, explained one player from South Africa (Player 4). Moreover, with sponsorships, franchise contracts, and media rights in play, female cricketers are navigating a landscape that takes on some of the characteristics of men's professional sport: higher rewards but increasing precarity.

As Dowse and Fletcher (2018) note, these tournaments not only support financial development for some players but also provide opportunities to expand a player's competitive experience. The players in this study were starting to experience this and were excited about the impact of new domestic contracts, income streams and the opportunities this created for international player migration. Player 5 reflected that,

It's really good that they introduced these contracts at the domestic level in the Hundred. If someone plays well, they’ll get picked in WBBL and … it can make a big difference to people's lives.

Player 5's excitement reflects a change in her career whereby a scenario unimaginable a decade ago – performing in one league to open doors to employment in others – becomes a possibility. A single standout innings in The Hundred could dramatically raise a domestic player's visibility, with the potential for leading to overseas league offers. While women's sport remains less economically stable compared to men's, it is now at least feasible that it could provide a financially rewarding career, if only for the very top players.

In this regard, some women are beginning to ‘enjoy’ similar opportunities to Rumford's (2011) portfolio players, forsaking national fixtures to make their living through contracts with multiple leagues. As Player 8 pointed out, ‘Deandra Dottin and Dane van Niekerk are two examples … who aren't playing international cricket but are playing domestic leagues. We’ll see more and more, potentially, but so far women's cricket is in a good, healthy place’. While still relatively uncommon (in part due to the relative value of centralised contracts in top countries), this could signal a future where the very concept of a female portfolio cricketer – not even considered 15 years ago – would become possible. It is early days for such transformations, and we should not expect them to follow the linear path of men's cricket, but women cricketers are experiencing opportunities beyond those that tie them to a single national employer. While the availability of these beneficial contractual arrangements for women is more scarce, interviewees generally felt the women's game has not yet reached a problematic level of conflict in balancing club and country, as seen in the men's game. Indeed, the overall view from the players in this study was that the infusion of money was ‘healthy’, had helped expand the player base, and that national structures should and could adapt rather than perceive such developments as a threat. Mirroring developments in men's cricket, the role of ‘professional women's cricketer’ is no longer tied solely to representing one's country.

Commercialisation has also increased the demand for marketable heroes, which, in turn, has ushered in a more entrepreneurial athlete mindset among women cricketers. Several interviewees mentioned actively learning to handle media duties, building personal brands on social media, and attracting sponsorships – activities that were rare or non-existent for past generations of female cricketers. Yet interviewees recognised that higher salaries and endorsements also come with a greater range of personal challenges:

With the game becoming more professional … you’re going to get more money, [with] young people coming in and becoming full-time cricketers. So the important thing is having support around that … help them work out their identity and keep them mentally strong, and also what they’re about outside of cricket. (Player 2)

Indeed, interviewees acknowledged that both the intensity and overall quantity of workload have increased through the introduction of franchise cricket. For as Player 2 reflects, the more intensive schedule increased the need to ensure that players have an identity outside of the game. However, that becomes more challenging if the playing season is lengthened through multiple franchise cricket contracts, especially when these tournaments each require more media engagement and off-field promotion through interviews and social media. Thus, a downside of the expanded fixture list was both a more intense workload and the increasing rarity of opportunities to have the traditional off-season break and to rest and recuperate:

Obviously, when you play the Big Bash and The Hundred, you don’t get that off-season time, because you’re always playing matches … which is good. You need both … an off-season time where … I analyse the whole season, what went well, what I could do better, what I want to work on. (Player 1)

The success of these leagues in empowering players also brings greater physical and emotional demands which must be prudently managed (Fletcher et al., 2023). The leagues, for their part, have started to adjust with better rotation policies and sports science support, but the pressure to perform constantly for different teams is a new challenge women cricketers may now have to navigate. As one England player noted, there have been some positive adjustments within the structures of the game. Since COVID-19, it was noted, it has become more accepted that players sometimes need to take mental health breaks amid packed schedules, just as they would for a physical injury. She remarked,

Mental health is seen as an injury. There's been a massive shift in people being open and honest with their coaches, saying, ‘Look, I’m not feeling good, I’m knackered’. It's great [that they can do that]. (Player 8)

However, the vast majority of women are on contracts for just one tournament. Such short contracts, and the precarity of selling one's labour to multiple employers in order to sustain a career, create the conditions in which athletes take greater risks and thus expose themselves to more frequent and more severe physical injuries and well-being challenges (Malcolm et al., 2023).

Development of player skills

The rise of professional women's leagues has also had a marked influence on coaching standards and player development pathways. Daily routines now entail more intensive training environments (Mooney et al., 2019) and revolve around structured gym sessions, net practices, team meetings, and mental preparation. This, in turn, is advancing levels of performance. In practical terms, both batting strike rates and bowling speeds have increased. One New Zealander (Player 3) commented that having the benefits of professional contracts and opportunities abroad let her concentrate on improving specific skills year-round; improvements that are evident in the raised standard of competition in each successive season. There was, therefore, evidence to support Fletcher et al.'s (2023) assertion that money has contributed to the growth of the women's game and, in turn, this can allow players to focus on skill development.

The players experienced these changes as transformative, with many interviewees describing a dramatic evolution in the standard and style of play

I could say the growth has been massive … whether it's fitness, fielding, power-hitting, weight training, running or whatever. You’ve got young girls coming up, which is fantastic. I think it's exciting to see players like Darcie Brown and Lauren Bell, who are really quick, which is amazing to see. (Player 4)

Player 4's excitement signals how the women's game is now producing talents with skills once thought rare in women's cricket (bowling consistently at 120 + kph, etc.). Such developments are a direct outcome of the high-performance environments and competitive stimulus provided by the professional leagues, with top players continuously challenging each other.

The influx of international migrant professionals into these franchise leagues was further thought to have raised standards. As Player 3 observed, these leagues have ‘massively improved the standard of women's cricket … you’re playing competitive cricket more often … with more overseas pros coming in … So many more players [are] developing around the world’. This has led domestic talent to elevate their game by learning from global stars. In this respect, the women's game has replicated trends seen in the professionalisation and commercialisation of men's cricket, particularly in England in the 1960s and 1970s.

However, a perhaps more significant part of the changing environment in women's cricket is the improvement in the quality of coaching. In the past, women's cricket often lacked access to top coaches, and men's programs received preferential treatment due to their higher perceived value (Velija and Malcolm, 2009). Today, however, many female cricketers move between international fixtures and domestic leagues and are therefore exposed to the philosophies and high-performance support of elite coaching. The interviewees suggested that coaching in these leagues prioritises empowerment and mental skills over technical overhaul. As one player described, overseas franchise coaches ‘just give you a role … and a lot of confidence … they don’t go too technical … they’re more about the mental stuff’ (Player 1). This approach aligns with elements of contemporary coaching trends that emphasise player autonomy and mindset (Occhino et al., 2014). Players are treated as professionals capable of self-driven preparation, with coaches acting as facilitators – a distinct change from earlier eras when women's teams had limited coaching support (Velija and Malcolm, 2009). Thus, while coaching set-ups have become increasingly male-dominated (in 2025, just three of the eight coaches in the WBBL and one of the eight coaches of women's teams in The Hundred were female), women players are now more likely to benefit from access to more experienced coaches (Nicholson, 2024). It remains to be seen how the professionalisation of women's cricket translates into coaching opportunities for former players, but the emerging evidence suggests that additional interventions will be required to establish gender equality (Staurowsky et al., 2022).

While those at the top clearly benefited most from contracts and coaching, the leagues have provided players from both the dominant and developing nations with some wider opportunities. Player 2 noted,

I think there's probably more assistance given to a larger proportion of players at an international level … But domestically, players are still figuring out who they are … and being able to understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Similarly, Player 4 noted how the leagues had helped overcome the relative weaknesses of certain domestic structures: ‘we don't have leagues back home and … domestic cricket is not as strong as it should be. These leagues have helped me learn how to play that game, how to deal with pressure and how to get your team over the line’ (Player 4). Young players from associate nations also gained invaluable experience in The Hundred's professional setup. ‘The Hundred helped me a lot… just getting to be in that environment, seeing the world's best how they go about their stuff’. Player 6 went on to highlight knowledge transfer to her home country's setup ‘I could see what I’d learned and share that with [my teammates] back home’. Consequently, the player migration franchise cricket has fostered could be transferred to domestic leagues across the globe, where access to coaching is more limited, and thus onto domestic players. While the impact across the women's game might therefore be more widely spread, this in turn depends on the benevolent actions of individuals and an additional body of unpaid work and emotional labour (Pavlidis, 2020).

Revolutionising women's cricket and future impact

While the introduction of the WBBL and The Hundred has frequently been credited with playing a part in professionalising the women's game (Parry et al., 2021), the players in this study also recognised how professionalisation of the game would have a broader impact on the future trajectory of cricket. An anticipated consequence of the heightened visibility of the game was thought to be an increase in the number of girls playing the game. As one Australian player articulated,

You go back to the quote, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’, right? Here in Australia it's always being telecasted … now there's some regularity to seeing female cricketers on TV. No doubt I got teased [before] that I picked a male sport, whereas I genuinely believe now, a young boy watching cricket doesn’t think it's a sport just for him. (Player 2)

This testimony captures the profound societal shift underway: the presence of women's cricket in mainstream media, free-to-air broadcasting and social media content is normalising the idea that cricket is a sport for both sexes. Young girls can finally see role models in their sport and aspire to professional careers, and young boys are growing up viewing women's matches as part of the fabric of cricket, rather than as an oddity (Mooney et al., 2019). Players interviewed often mentioned how they now regularly meet young girls (and boys) in academies who idolise women cricketers; as one noted, ‘I have seen parents taking a lot of initiative to enrol their girls into cricket academies … considering it as a full-time profession … They are looking for mentors and coaches … I always motivate them … We’ve come a long way’ (Player 8). These beliefs reinforce the idea that the ‘revolution’ is not merely about records and revenue but about changing mindsets and inspiring a new generation.

Distinctively, however, interviewees were conscious of their responsibilities towards enabling inclusivity. As women's cricket becomes more of a business, participants stressed the importance of investments in less-developed cricketing nations. They echoed sentiments in academic literature that, without deliberate effort, commercialisation could widen disparities (Mondal and Rampersad, 2020) and harm competitive balance within the game. Consequently, interviewees argued that more needed to be done to enable associate and developing nations to increase the visibility of the women's game. For instance, while an English player might have multiple televised leagues and a robust social media following, a talented player from an associate nation could remain relatively unseen outside occasional global tournaments. For instance, until recently, Scotland's women only had a handful of part-time contracts for players and minimal full-time coaching. As Player 6 noted, this constituted ‘a start, but it's not [enough] … more full-time … salaries for a full squad will make the difference in Scotland’.

The insight of Player 6 aligns with academic calls to broaden the base of professional women's cricket. As Mondal and Rampersad (2020) argue, the next step in cricket's growth is ensuring that opportunities and visibility extend beyond the traditional powerhouses to emerging nations. More needs to be understood about the migration patterns of international female cricketers and who benefits from free movement (Agergard, 2024), accepting that immigration policy, and labour markets may impact marginalised groups differently, thereby reinforcing current inequalities and making the existing international hierarchy of nations impregnable.

There was, though, a prevailing sense of optimism amongst players about the perception of women's cricket amongst those coming to watch. The players felt that a corner had been turned: ‘One thing's for sure – it's not staying stagnant. It's getting better and better, the level's going higher and higher and that's very exciting’, was how Player 5 put it. The achievements of the WBBL and The Hundred thus far demonstrate the potential for women's cricket to grow in distinct and potentially rapid ways when given financial investment and media exposure. The tournaments have acted as catalysts for change, revolutionising not just the sport but also societal perceptions of women cricketers as legitimate elite athletes.

Conclusion

Although this study relies on a small sample, participants were drawn from a variety of countries and career stages and had varied experiences of playing elite cricket. They also represent a relatively small wider ‘universe’. There are perhaps only about 100 women playing in these franchise leagues at any one time. Moreover, author one provided a distinctly insider perspective as she had lived through some of the same experiences as those who were interviewed. Indeed, this insider perspective enabled access to this elite group of women cricketers, with first-hand experience of playing franchise cricket across the globe and are thus some of the most central individuals within this unique historical phase of the game. This is a key contribution of this article.

Indeed, this research is the first to focus on elite female cricketers’ experiences and perspectives during this particularly rapid period of change in the game. Franchise cricket has manifestly changed many aspects of the women's game, specifically providing a ‘virtuous circle’ of enhanced public profile, greater financial viability, new and more extensive career pathways, higher skill levels among players, and the potential for further growth. The leagues have created an environment where women cricketers can think long-term about the sport as a profession – from honing their craft with professional rigour to engaging with media and managing their personal brand – and have subsequently (re-)positioned or legitimated women's cricket as a professional and commercial entity. The data presented here adds a novel angle and further nuance to previous claims that these leagues have revolutionised how women's sport is perceived and experienced by both players and fans (Nicholson et al., 2025). The words of Player 1 (cited earlier) perhaps best capture the spirit of this new era: ‘I think I could see the turning point … people just came for good cricket’.

While clearly far from experiencing equity with the men, compared to previous research on the professionalisation of women's sport (e.g. Taylor, 2020), the interviewees expressed few concerns about the relatively low pay, precarity or restricted opportunities available to them. However, the women's optimism about the game and their experiences should not be taken without some reflections. For example, the research of Pavlidis (2020) highlights that elite women athletes may not speak out against ongoing injustices while playing. Elite athletes can express how grateful they are for playing, and the support they receive without being blind to, or complacent about, other changes. This is something highlighted in the (FICA, 2022)report, which noted that 41% of players did not feel able to have a say in the decisions that impact them. As players have a vested interest in professionalisation, it may be difficult for them to critique the structures in which they are so heavily involved. Indeed, to expect them to do so may be to place unreasonable demands on those who are already pioneering important social change.

Additionally, we would stress the importance of our findings in relation to the alignment of these developments with the broader processes of professionalisation and commercialisation seen in men's sport, and in particular the evidence of some important divergent differences. First, and as a consequence of the ‘digital turn’ and the form of mediatisation evident at this particular historical juncture (Fletcher et al., 2023), the increase in visibility for the women's game has occurred particularly rapidly. Rather than developing through a series of steps as the professionalisation of men's sport has in the past, the transition from amateur to global game has happened across a single generation of female cricketers. The visibility of women's sport is invariably co-relative to the men's game, and this is why The Hundred in particular has been revolutionary.

Second, partly as a consequence of the speed of such developments, but also because of contemporary sensibilities about athlete vulnerabilities to the pressures of elite competition (Ogden et al., 2026), we see evidence of a discourse of player welfare and the importance of protecting the game's primary assets. In contrast, while such concerns were evident in relation to the physical health of players when rugby union became (openly) professional (Malcolm and Sheard, 2002), we see here a complimentary concern on both physical and mental health of players.

Third, a distinctive feature of the professionalisation of women's cricket is the players’ self-positioning as champions or ambassadors of the game more generally. In contrast, for instance, to Rumford's (2011) analysis of ‘portfolio players’ as somewhat mercenary in their career development, these participants see themselves as having key roles in actively promoting the women's game for the greater good. Players’ self-consciousness of their responsibilities towards other players, the next generation of players, and, to some extent, female cricketers across the globe adds to and increases the emotional labour of the professional athlete.

Additionally, we highlight two practical consequences of our findings. During the process of writing this article, the ECB has sold a stake in each of the franchises of The Hundred (49% per team, with the exception of the Yorkshire-based franchise). A number of the new investors are also stakeholders in the IPL, which, as noted, operates a distinctively different, and indeed more sex-differentiated, competition for men and women. While there has been no shortage of analysis about what this commercial development might mean for ‘the game’, the format of the competition, or how this might lead to changes in the way teams are named or operate, there are clearly also significant implications for the progressive moves towards equity in The Hundred. Anyone advocating for the consolidation or further development of these progressive developments must hope that the IPL/WPL follows The Hundred's lead rather than imposes its structure on The Hundred. Secondly, as these global franchises become increasingly interconnected, and given the distinct psychological demands of being an elite female athlete in this time and space, the need for robust player support systems becomes more evident; while the players celebrate the growth of the game and the fact that they can ‘play cricket for a living’ now, they also require assistance in adapting to the reality of being always ‘on’ in a commercial sports entertainment cycle.

In conclusion, we emphasise that the cultural shift in women's cricket is palpable – no longer is it an amateur pursuit, and the athletes see themselves as both beneficiaries and stewards of this new professional era. However, ongoing efforts are needed to translate this success on a truly global scale, so that women cricketers everywhere can enjoy the recognition and career sustainability that these leagues have begun to make possible (Parry et al., 2021). Players′ voices and experiences need to be heard and understood as the experience of professional sport, for while the possibilities for women cricketers seem to be growing, they both come with significant challenges for those involved, and history shows us that such developments have not always been or are likely to be linear in women's sport.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Akanksha Kohli

Dominic Malcolm

Philippa Velija

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval for the study was granted by the first and second author's education institution (ref. 2023-14856-14457).

Participant to consent

Participant consent information was informed consent to participate, written.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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