Women’s cricket success increases girls’ participation more than men’s success increases boys’ participation

What's this about?

People disagree about whether women’s cricket wins get more girls playing than men’s cricket wins get boys playing.

We have some clues, but no clear head-to-head test yet.

What supporters say

• Women players can act as rare, clear role models and show girls that cricket belongs to them too.
• Women’s wins often bring school, club, and player plans that give girls more chances to play.

What critics say

• No study has directly compared how women’s wins affect girls with how men’s wins affect boys.
• Men’s cricket wins can also inspire boys to play, so women’s wins may not have a bigger effect.

How to read this

The number of points on each side does not show who is right; strong proof matters more than a long list.

The bottom line

Women’s cricket success may help girls play more, especially when it brings strong role models and new chances.

Still, the evidence does not yet prove that it helps girls more than men’s success helps boys.

The claim is that success by women’s national cricket teams does more to increase girls’ participation than men’s success does to increase boys’ participation. The evidence makes that possibility plausible, but does not yet prove the comparison.

The case for

Women’s cricket success may have a particularly visible role-model effect for girls. A successful women’s team can show girls that cricket is for them, not only for boys and men. That visibility may challenge the idea that cricket is mainly a male sport and encourage girls to take part. Research on girls’ sport also points to the importance of feeling supported, respected, safe and included—conditions that prominent female players may help strengthen. 1

This argument is plausible, but it is not firmly established in cricket. A study from Japan found no clear rise in adolescent girls’ extracurricular sport participation after a women’s football victory. That result does not settle the question: it involved a different sport and country, and did not compare the effects of women’s and men’s teams.

A second argument is that women’s success has often been accompanied by specific efforts to turn attention into opportunities. In England, the ECB’s action plan and later promotional work have included school, club, grassroots and player-development initiatives aimed at women and girls. New Zealand Cricket has also described programmes designed to expand girls’ access to the sport. 2

If men’s success is less often followed by similar efforts to build opportunities for boys, girls could see a larger overall increase after women’s success. But this would be the combined result of visibility and investment, not evidence that winning alone affects girls more strongly than it affects boys.

The case against

The main problem is that the direct comparison has not been made. A UK government case study looked at participation around the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup and the 2019 Men’s Cricket World Cup, but it was not designed to show that women’s success caused a larger increase than men’s success. The participation patterns may be useful, but they cannot separate the effect of team success from campaigns, new facilities, school programmes or other changes (see Figure 1). 3

Men’s success can also encourage participation. Historical accounts connect England’s 2005 Ashes victory with increased interest in cricket, while broader participation figures show changes over time. These sources do not prove that the men’s team caused the changes, and they do not provide a direct comparison with girls’ responses. Still, they show that the demonstration effect is not unique to women’s cricket. 4

More broadly, elite sporting success does not automatically lead to more grassroots participation. Reviews describe this effect as mixed and dependent on local conditions. Facilities, coaches, school access, cost, safety and welcoming environments all affect whether excitement can become regular participation.

That creates a major uncertainty. The apparent advantage for women’s cricket may come from the interaction between success and greater policy effort to create access, rather than from a stable difference in how girls and boys respond to winning. The evidence does not adequately separate success from exposure, recruitment campaigns, investment, seasonality and existing participation trends.

The bottom line

The evidence does not establish that women’s cricket success increases girls’ participation more than men’s success increases boys’ participation. The case for the claim rests on credible but weak evidence about role models and on examples where women’s success was paired with targeted investment.

The evidence against treating the claim as demonstrated is stronger: there is no cricket-specific, causal comparison of girls’ and boys’ responses under equivalent conditions. Confidence in rejecting the claim as currently proven is moderate, not absolute. A female role-model effect remains plausible, but the available research says more about possible mechanisms and the need for supporting opportunities than about which gender gains more from team success.