Charlotte Edwards, the former England cricket captain has recently spoken about the possible impact on the women’s game because of the Hundred‘s delay. The launch of the brand new tournament has postponed for a year because of the global pandemic novel coronavirus. The eight city-based franchises league have both the men’s and women’s teams. This had high hopes that it will give a major boost in exposure for the women’s cricket.
Moreover, the total amount of £600,000 would be divided equally as part of the governing body’s ‘commitment to making cricket a gender-balanced sport. But the amounts are far lower than the men’s. However, the lowest-paid men’s player was about £30,000. On the other hand, the highest-paid women’s player will get £15,000. Surprisingly, that is about 12 per cent of the male cricketers’ whose salaries will be at £150,000.
Charlotte Edwards, who will coach the Southern Brave, told BBC World Service: “A lot of people are out of work. A lot of players were hoping to have contracts for the Hundred, which were quite lucrative for some of them, and everyone’s going to miss out which is so unfortunate and at such an important time for women’s cricket.”
Although the Hundred was about to replace England’s domestic tournament; the global pandemic has brought the world into a standstill. All the sporting events have been either postponed or cancelled because of this.
READ HERE: ECB Pushes Back The Hundred Launch to 2021
she further added, “For the players, it’s a worrying time. But we have been guaranteed that the ECB will still go ahead with their £20m investment into the women’s game, which is something that is obviously keeping us all going at the moment. This year was going to be hugely exciting for the game and important, and it’s good that it will go ahead – but being delayed is going to prove to be a problem for some of the players.”
Her comments came when Yorkshire leg-spinner Katie Levick shared her thoughts on this. She became devastated – not only with the delay but also due to the “celebration” that is going on social media. Notably, she was about to play for Northern Superchargers.
Just had to get a quick note on The Hundred off my chest👇🏼
Hopefully here’s to 2021. pic.twitter.com/gDZkYcgHK8
— Katie Levick (@Katie_Lev) April 30, 2020
However, she shared that it was mixed feelings for her when she first about this cancellation. But she also said that it was the right decision keeping everyone’s health and well-being in mind. Meanwhile, the tournament could be huge after the T20 World Cup witnessed a sky-high success in Australia earlier this year. The final of the T20 World Cup saw a record-breaking attendance of more than 84,000 people.
“We just really felt the momentum was with the women’s game and we were also going to introduce contracts this summer for 40 professional cricketers, and it’s all been put on hold at the moment,” Charlotte Edwards concluded.
