This book offers the first ever academic study of womens cricket in Britain from its origins in the 18th century to the present day. It examines womens cricket from grassroots to international level, in schools, universities, the workplace and clubs. The book draws on a wealth of new source material including player diaries and scrapbooks, club records and the records of the Womens Cricket Association.
Through use of oral history interviews with many former players, the book argues that womens cricket was a site of feminism across its history, and an important source of empowerment to the women who participated in the sport. However, it also examines barriers to womens participation, analyzing the persistence of opposition to womens sport across the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Overall, the book uses womens cricket as a case study to highlight the existence of ongoing fundamental inequalities in the quantity and quality of women's leisure in contemporary Britain.
