Daniel Gidney: We want to play our part in accelerating growth of women's cricket

Already this year, Thunder have been on tour to the UAE and played under lights at Emirates Old Trafford but Lancashire's CEO is determined to do more, stating: "If we're going to this, we have to do it properly"

Daniel Gidney says Thunder playing the headline act on a T20 double-header day with Lancashire’s men at Emirates Old Trafford, as happened at the start of the month, will not be a one-off.

The Red Rose chief executive is determined to continue throwing his full support behind the development of the women’s game, admitting: "If we’re going to do this, we have to do it properly."

Thunder played host to eventual Charlotte Edwards Cup champions Southern Vipers under lights on Wednesday, June 1, when the game was also preceded by a women in sport and business talk with local leaders and sports stars. Lancashire Lightning had played Derbyshire in the Vitality Blast during the afternoon.

It was the first time a women’s team had been the headline act on a weekday double-header, a show of faith in their progression that came hot on the heels of March’s joint men’s and women’s pre-season tour of Dubai.

"We’ve done the double header under lights, and we will do it again," said Gidney, who went on to talk about the future of the pre-season tour. "That was a real turning point for us, a statement of intent to show our support, and as far I’m concerned that is also here to stay.

^{Thunder played under lights against Southern Vipers [Ashley Allen/Getty Images]}

"We decided to take the leap, with significant help from two of our commercial partners outside of Emirates, who obviously helped us with flights. A lot of people say, 'Commercial partners won’t get involved until the attendances are high'. I actually challenge that and believe some want to get involved at the ground floor and be part of the journey.

"Sportsbreaks.com and Hilton are investing money in our women’s programme, and I think it’s a really exciting time to be involved in women’s sport."

That Vipers’ game under lights was the first of two T20 double headers at Emirates Old Trafford in three days, with Thunder then playing the Loughborough-based Lightning side on the Friday afternoon before Lancashire played a game in the evening.

Unfortunately, the Vipers claimed a big win on the Wednesday night before Thunder bounced back to beat Lightning, helped by a stunning five-wicket haul from England spin star Sophie Ecclestone.

"That night went beyond my expectations," continued Gidney. "It was a big effort by Christian (Mullarkey, Lancashire’s head of marketing) and his team to pull together the women in sport and business panel.

"To have the quality of panel we did was fantastic, with the chief executive of Trafford Council (Sara Todd), the HR director at Manchester United (Annie Hale) and the sales and marketing director at Sale (Claire Butters) amongst others.

"It really brought home to me how much elite professional sport is in Trafford, and it was great to have so many female leaders in Trafford on that panel because role models are important in any form of life.

"It’s what you see, feel and hear that makes you want to be the next Kate Cross or Sara Todd.

^{Sophie Ecclestone picked up a five-for in the second double-header [George Franks/@ggf_photos]}

"You’re then blending those names with young Alice Clarke, who is just coming out of our Thunder Academy and was involved in that panel. She speaks so well and confidently for one so young, and I think she’s got a bright future. The day after the panel, she was netting at 9am because she hadn’t made the squad.

"For her to see it and think, 'I want a bit of that playing under lights at Emirates Old Trafford', to me that kind of proves it was success. The girls didn’t perform as well as they’d have liked in that first game, but look at what they did two days later. They bounced back and were superb.

"You wouldn’t believe that we still have a lot of dinosaurs on social media who just want to criticise it for the sake of criticising it. "People said to me, 'I couldn’t get there until after work to watch the men’s game'. My answer, 'But you got to see the women’s game, isn’t that great?'"

Gidney continued: "If I look back at when Lancashire Thunder played in the KSL, the difference to now is marked because we have a professional set-up.

"It’s not rocket science. If you fully fund a professional programme, give them strength and conditioning support, training support, performances are going to go up. We’ve all seen the gains with the ECB’s funding of the contracts, and Lancashire have funded extra. We’re going to continue to do that. We’re increasing investment in other areas as well."

Gidney and Lancashire will leave no stone unturned in their drive for "equality" with the women’s and men’s games. One such example is that they pay non-contracted women wages for training to ensure parity with the men. Mileage rates are also topped up for the same reason.

"You look at all the EDI issues across cricket at the moment, and with what’s happened at Yorkshire there’s a lot of focus on race, quite rightly," he said. "But, at the same time, there’s a lot of casual sexism and gender discrimination in cricket which doesn’t get the profile.

"We have made big strides over the last few years to provide equality for our women’s teams.

^{The likes of Sophie Ecclestone and Kate Cross need to be more available during the domestic season, believes Gidney [Mark Kolbe/Getty Images]}

"Men’s elite sport is in a mature space. Women’s elite sport isn’t. But it has fantastic opportunities for attendance growth, performance growth, commercial growth. We have to accelerate it because the women’s professional domestic game has only been around two years in this country. And we want to play our part in accelerating that."

One way of accelerating the growth of the game which Gidney believes is crucial is making star names such as Ecclestone and Kate Cross available for domestic duty. Something to keep an eye on is the impending creation of the women’s Indian Premier League.

Gidney added: "There’s going to be a women’s IPL, and I’ve spoken to the ECB and said they have to make sure they don’t clash. This year we’ve had the IPL and Fairbreak Challenges clashing with the regional stuff.

"If we want to grow this at speed, the best have to play against the best in your domestic tournament. Kate and Sophie, and the other England players around the country, have to play. The Hundred is just not enough at this level."