Cricket’s decision to change its laws to include gender-neutral terms such as batter will inevitably bring into focus other terms that are no longer appropriate for the modern game.
The Marylebone Cricket Club, as the custodian of the game’s laws, announced overnight that it will immediately change the wording of “batsman” to “batter” and “batsmen” to “batters”.
In acknowledging that the laws apply to both the men’s and women’s game, the MCC explained that the change recognised cricket’s status as an inclusive game for all.
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The recently retired England wicketkeeper Sarah Taylor was once hailed by no less a judge than Adam Gilchrist as “the best wicketkeeper in the world – male or female” in a welcome sign that the skill of the top women is finally getting the respect it deserves.
With 86,174 fans attending last year’s T20 World Cup final at the MCG between Australia and India, it can be easily argued that the update to the laws is well overdue.
It also raises the valid question of other terms within the game, such as 12th man and nightwatchman, which remain unchanged.
British media celebrity and cricket fan Piers Morgan has been one of the outspoken critics of cancel culture and in his own inimitable style he cranked up the rage machine via this very point, with the following tweet:
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1440641323103494155?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
But he misses an important point.
As the MCC flagged, those descriptions are not enshrined in the laws of the game, and therefore it is not in a position to make changes.
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Rather, it will be down to those that love the game, and wish to see it prosper into the future, to make gender-neutral terms commonplace.
Lancashire captain Alex Hartley put it best when she said, “If you hate it, grow up.
“Cricket is a sport for everyone and this is a small but big move.”
Those haters presumably inhabit the corridors of the UK Daily Telegraph, where historian and columnist Simon Heffer described the move as “ultra-woke grandstanding” and slammed the MCC for “adopting this revolting word where a perfectly serviceable and universally understood one had long existed”.
“There will be legions of cricket lovers of both genders through whose lips the abomination ‘batter’ will never pass so long as we live,” he wrote.
In all likelihood Mr Heffer won’t be attending any baseball games involving the soon-to-be-renamed Cleveland Indians, who announced earlier this year they would change their identity to the Cleveland Guardians after decades of controversy.
Australians over the age of 35 will also remember Golliwog biscuits which were popular until the 1990s, when they were renamed Scalliwag biscuits, as attitudes changed to the racist caricature.
And it’s only been in recent years that cricket has stopped referring to left-arm wrist spin bowlers as “Chinaman”, a term that dates back to the 1930s.
It’s claimed that English batter Walter Robins, after being bowled by Ellis “Puss” Achong, the first Test player of Chinese descent, said, “Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman”.
As The Sydney Morning Herald’s Andrew Wu said in 2017, such a description is out of date in the modern era.
“The term is not used in a disparaging manner in the context of cricket, but that alone is not justification for its continued use,” he wrote.
https://twitter.com/MCCOfficial/status/1440689650490773506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
“It’s just as well Robins did not bemoan being dismissed by a ‘chink'”.
Attitudes change, and cricket has not exactly led the charge in terms of change in the past – after all, it took more than 200 years for the MCC to admit its first female member – but the MCC’s move on gender-equality is a welcome step forward.
It must be remembered though, it’s merely one rung on an endless ladder of change.
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