Head of The Hundred Beth Barrett-Wild is keen to harness the momentum created by the Lionesses and take that into the second edition of the 100-ball competition and beyond
English cricket is using women's football as the yardstick for success and in its own way build on a record-breaking European Championships, according to the ECB's head of The Hundred and female engagement Beth Barrett-Wild.
It is hoped that England's Euro 2022 triumph will destroy the remaining barriers to women's sport and spark a new wave of enthusiasm for a game in a country that already has more than 3.4 million active players.
The tournament enjoyed record-breaking crowds and free-to-air TV audiences but, 10 years on from the London Olympic Games in 2012, securing a concrete legacy is far from a guarantee.
Barrett-Wild, ahead of the second edition of The Hundred, wants to harness that energy and fresh appreciation for women's sport at the elite level and translate it into cricket.
"I see it as a wider momentum piece," she said, having been at Wembley for the extra-time win over Germany. "There is this line: we all rise with more eyes.
"So the opportunity is normalising that women are playing sport on the biggest stages and that people are going to watch it and that perception shift around women's sport generally.
"I am looking to see how that can translate and we can hopefully increase our attendance on a match day because people see it as something they want to go and watch.
"Football is a juggernaut but we're doing everything we can to keep up with that.
The women will headline a single double-header in 2022 (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
"We're investing heavily across our programme not just with the professional game but in the grassroots to make cricket as accessible as it can be for young girls coming through."
The women's Hundred also broke attendance records during its inaugural year, with the 17,116 that watched the final at Lord's the biggest for a domestic women's cricket match in the world.
Though there remains a chasm in terms of salaries - top male players can up to £135,000 while the highest salary for the women is £31,250 - there is equity in terms of prize money with both competitions sharing £600,000 equally.
Double-headers - an innovation forced by the Covid pandemic - was one of the highlights from the 2021 tournament. Bar the opening two nights when the first games in either competition were staged on their own, all game days saw a women's match followed by the men.
There has been some small movement on that front, with the women given one evening match after the men. The opening game of the competition - which is reduced and starts late due to the Commonwealth Games - between Oval Invincibles and Northern Superchargers on August 11 is the only time the women will headline a double-header and will be used as a barometer for future years.
"I'm excited to see how it goes," said Barrett-Wild. "It is going to be interesting to see how it plays out and I am very optimistic that it is going to look brilliant, and feel brilliant.
"The whole double-header model we saw how positive and impactful it can be for women's cricket so we are cautiously optimistic over the attendances at women's matches.
"We looked to see where it would work. Scheduling is really complicated and we're going to use that opening game as an opportunity to see what happens.
"I would love to get to a stage relatively quickly where we have a women's draft alongside a men's draft"
"We have aspirations for the women's competition to be as big as it could possibly be so we'll see how we go and we'll look at 2023 off the back of that."
Another key difference between the men's and women's competitions is the absence of a draft system to help determine the make-up of the eight squads. Barrett-Wild hopes, thanks to an expanding talent pool, the wait for such a process won't be too much longer.
Currently, the three-stage precedure has a retention window for England contracted players, domestic and overseas stars and then an open market for those unattached. The number of professional players in the domestic game sits at 51, with 17 players contracted by England.
"We're reviewing the selection mechanism in September," added Barrett-Wild.
"I am in the process of collating feedback from all of the general managers based on the selection process that we've had going into 2022.
"I am very ambitious and I want to align the women's selection mechanism with the men's in the future. Whether it will be next year I don't know.
"The key reason why we don't have a women's draft is around the maturity of the professional women's game.
"Those beneath (the contracted players) are not full-time professional cricketers so there is an element that they still need to have a say in where they play.
Lizelle Lee returns to The Hundred this summer (George Wood/Getty Images)
"I would love to get to a stage relatively quickly where we have a women's draft alongside a men's draft. We have to go step by step and it might be a case of not going all at once. We'll do what is right for the women's game. I wouldn't like to put a timeline on that."
After Covid led to several overseas players cancelling appearances last year, the women's competition is stacked with some of the best in the world. Ellyse Perry, Meg Lanning, Alyssa Healy, Suzie Bates, Amelia Kerr, Marizanne Kapp and Dane van Niekerk are just some of the superstars on show.
Lizelle Lee and Deandra Dottin return to the competition to represent Manchester Originals, having both recently called time on their respective international careers. Those decisions come as the women's calendar begins to grow, with the established WBBL being joined by The Hundred and Fairbreak Invitational T20 in the last 12 months, with a women's Caribbean Premier League and Indian Premier League soon to follow.
Barrett-Wild, who attended the ICC annual conference in Birmingham last week when the growth of the women's game was among the central discussion points, believes the current calendar allows players to balance both international and domestic cricket. For now.
"We're at a really exciting juncture at the moment for women's cricket in the sense of the potential of the WBBL, The Hundred, the women's IPL, the women's CPL," she added. "There are more and more opportunities now.
"But I think the international women's game is growing at a pace as well. It is developing and growing at a pace but it is an exciting time to be a professional player.
"I think there is any need for players to pick, at this stage. You see the best players in the world, our own players like Sophie Ecclestone and Heather Knight being able to combine both and the same with the Australians.
"I think they are two instances in a moment in time that are interesting but I don't think they're going to set trends in the immediate future."
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