While there is praise for the ECB's commitment to growing women's cricket, the report highlights the disparity in salaries, and calls for the situation to be rectified by the turn of the decade, as well as increased investment in infrastructure
The ECB has been told to secure equal pay for its male and female cricketers by 2030.
Within the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC)'s damning report into the state of the game within England and Wales are multiple proposals relating to the future of the women's game in this country.
While there is praise for the ECB's commitment to growing women's cricket over recent years, the report highlights the disparity in salaries between men and women at all levels of the game, and calls for the situation to be rectified by the turn of the decade, as well as increased investment in infrastructure.
There are currently 80 centrally funded professional female cricketers in England and Wales, up from 40 in 2020, with a handful more employed directly by regions. Women's regional teams, the report states, have salary caps of £250,000 per year, compared to the £2.5million for men's counties.
Action from the recent Women's Ashes Test [Getty Images]
The ICEC report - released on Tuesday (June 27) - takes exception to the gulf in match–fee rates awarded to men and women, particularly for England's white-ball teams. England's women are, at present, earning around 25 per cent of their male equivalent for ODI and T20I cricket.
Commercial remuneration does not avoid the spotlight either, with the ICEC report suggesting England's elite women's cricketers are earning considerably less for ambassadorial appearances than their male equivalents. The report calls for these payments to be made equal by 2028.
The Commission wants to see rookie contracts introduced, on a par with the men's counties, by 2024. It has also demanded The Hundred's disbalanced pay structure is amended to become equitable for men and women in time for the 2025 season.
Currently, the top-paid man in The Hundred receives £125,000, while the top-paid woman is paid £31,250.
Furthermore, the report asks for equality in working conditions to be levelled immediately, while the means by which salaries are identified should be standardised across genders.
The disparity, the report says, drags all the way down through pathway systems.
It quotes research which claims that, in 2021, the boys' academies within first-class counties received funding which accounted for 40 per cent of the total investment into the entire professional women's domestic game.
"This in our view is wholly wrong, and serves only to perpetuate the current lack of equity," the report states.
ICEC also lay out allegations that women's regional teams have had to make do with second use of training facilities, around the schedule of the men's team.
ECB head office [ECB]
"Whilst we have not had the capacity to explore this in detail, we are confident, based on the evidence we received, that it is unlikely to be exceptional," the report says.
A core proposal within the ICEC report is the introduction of gender-based budgeting by the ECB.
"Spending and investment decisions can have very different impacts on women and men, because of different starting points, needs and priorities," the report reads.
"The analysis conducted to inform decision-making should adopt an intersectional approach that considers race, class and gender."
Elsewhere in the report, there is a suggestion that the ECB should attribute more value to the eradication of sexism within cricket in place of "growth" of the women's game based purely on participation data, and that the sport should recognise its historic failure to promote the women's game.
"There must be express recognition of the historic injustices that women have faced in cricket and that to remedy this injustice and reverse its consequences, even more must be done, including pursuing specific anti-sexist strategies," it reads, in part.
"Both in terms of the language used, and the actions taken, the women's game must be treated as an integral part of cricket, of equal value and not subservient to the men's game, if cricket is to become truly an equitable sport."
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