The Inspiration Generation: How England Women's class of the 2000s came to run the game

All afternoon at Wantage Road, on finals day of the Charlotte Edwards Cup, the stadium announcer was obliged to repeat the name of the former England captain.

In the Southern Vipers dugout, the competition's eponymous heroine perched and squirmed occasionally. She had learned through the summer to become comfortable with the honour, after at first needing some convincing.

The trophy is at her house now, sitting in the hallway still in its box: it took her team two attempts to win their coach in silver – a pressure that Edwards thinks held them back the first time around. There was a weirdness to the whole shtick that competed initially with what was an innately touching tribute from one great of the English game, Clare Connor, to another, Charlotte Edwards.

These are traditionally posthumous accolades, to have a piece of silverware in your name. But Edwards is royalty and, as Connor explained to her over the speakerphone as she made her way to Arundel one morning in 2021, they couldn't name a T20 tournament after one of the legends of the past who'd never experienced the format. So, who better than the captain who made England world champions?

Edwards isn't just a storied ex-player or an all-conquering coach, but also the first female president of the Professional Cricketers' Association and, more generally, one of the most recognisable, respected faces in the English game: a trailblazer in a generation of trailblazers, full of pride in her peers, who – after living their cricket careers through the anonymity and autonomy of the amateur era – have found ways of utilising their skillsets to stay in the game as some of its most important figures.

"We were much more in control of our own destiny," says Claire Taylor. "Everybody went through education because you had to have something else. Everybody worked on the side because you had to work."

^{Charlotte Edwards and Clare Connor have become two of the game's most significant people (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)}

The Cricketer has spent the last 12 months speaking to them, asking how what happened during the early noughties set them up for roles as leading administrators, respected coaches and world-class broadcasters.

As Laura Macleod puts it: "I see us as a lifetime of changemakers, always trying to push boundaries, always trying to seek fairness, always trying to do what we think is right for the generation that's coming through now, who don't need to have it the way we had it.

"But my journey to where I am now, I don't think I could be the person I am now without having to do what we did back in the day – to juggle, to not have the money to spend on luxury items. It makes me humble. We created a legacy between us."

What is especially striking is how much sense it all makes: everyone remembers Edwards as a cricket addict and a coach-in-waiting; Connor was a natural decision-maker; Isa Guha has always been a bubbly talker tailor-made for her second career as a presenter. "Even Sue Redfern," says Ebony Rainford-Brent. "She was always about attention to detail, very structured and systematic. Umpiring is right up her street."

Clare Connor, international debut in 1995: ECB interim chief executive, ECB managing director for women's cricket, MCC world cricket committee, ex-MCC president

Claire Taylor, international debut in 1998: head of MCC cricket committee, London Spirit chair

Charlotte Edwards, international debut in 1996: PCA president, head coach of Southern Vipers, Southern Brave, Sydney Sixers, Mumbai Indians

Clare Taylor, international debut in 1988: ECB anti-corruption unit

Ebony Rainford-Brent, international debut in 2001: Sky Sports and BBC broadcaster, chair of the ACE Programme

Isa Guha, international debut in 2001: BBC and Fox Sports broadcaster

Lydia Greenway, international debut in 2003: head coach of Barmy Army, fielding coach of Mumbai Indians, Sky Sports broadcaster, founder of Female Cricket Store, Cricket for Girls and Girls Cricket Club, author of Women and Girls' Cricket: How We Can Grow The Game Together

Holly Colvin, international debut in 2005: former ICC women's cricket manager, 2022 Commonwealth Games head of cricket

Lucy Pearson, international debut in 1996: ECB board member

Sue Redfern: international debut in 1995: international umpire

Sarah Taylor, international debut in 2006: coach at Sussex and Manchester Originals

Laura MacLeod, international debut in 1997: Central Sparks director of cricket, chair of MCC women's cricket subcommittee

Anya Shrubsole, international debut in 2008: assistant coach at Southern Vipers and Sydney Sixers

Laura Marsh, international debut in 2006: assistant coach at The Blaze and England Women Under-19s

Dani Hazell, international debut in 2009: head coach of Northern Diamonds and Northern Superchargers

^{England's 2009 double world champions at Downing Street for a reception with Gordon Brown (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)}

The spread of those commitments and their geographical breadth mean the stars don't often align for a full-scale reunion, the most recent coming a few years ago when a box was hired for the 2009 World Cup-winning team at The Oval. But what has never abated is the bond they share as a group.

"It's a really lovely observation," says Connor. "It shows that it was a period, as I thought I knew at the time, where we had a quite remarkable group of women who stuck together.

"I think I knew at the time that our team, which was so resilient on the pitch in finally overcoming the Aussies, was a group of women that – whatever they were going to go on and do (or were already doing as amateurs) – we knew would have a huge amount of success and achievement.

"And I also did know that it was such a key time for us, and we knew that a lot of us would stay close to cricket and want to shape the future of it, even if that sounds a bit lofty."

So, over six sections - available via the links below (and all free to read on March 8, International Women's Day) - this project tells the story of how these women graduated from their careers as international cricketers to become industry leaders following their retirements.

Related Topics

• The Inspiration Generation: The game's new leaders
• The Inspiration Generation: Ebony Rainford-Brent, almost lost to cricket before she'd even begun
• The Inspiration Generation: Sarah Taylor, the first viral women's cricketer
• The Inspiration Generation: The changing face of cricket broadcasting
• The Inspiration Generation: Coaching's fresh dawn