The Liverpool & District Cricket Competition are striving for more inclusivity in their leagues – but may have got it wrong this time.
In an attempt to make women and girls more comfortable playing cricket, the Comp have announced they will permit female players to wear ‘darker trousers’.
The Comp is one of many leagues in which prior to this season, all players were obligated to wear all white kit.
The attempt to break down barriers has sparked conversation in cricket in recent years about allowing women to wear darker trousers to ease their worries of their periods showing.
This is a decision the Liverpool Comp has now taken, but women playing in the competition believe they have missed the mark.
Hope Anderson, a player at Liverpool CC, said: “It draws attention to something which doesn’t need drawing attention to in a way.
“There’s definitely bigger barriers. Just from me playing men’s cricket, I’ve never thought of being on my period and wearing white trousers as being a barrier to playing cricket.
“I think generally in society men as a whole are pretty awkward about periods and stuff like that, whereas for a woman that’s just their life, they’re used to it.
“So, because it’s this kind of strange thing to men and they feel awkward about it, they’re putting this emphasis on it as it being a big barrier.
“But to women, it’s not actually that big of a barrier because its just what we have to deal with in everyday life.
“We completely understand what they’re trying to do, but it is just not the right way to do it and I think that’s kind of what everyone thought.
“They’re just trying to remove a barrier, but building another barrier of them being excluded and singled out within a team where they’re potentially already feeling singled out.”
Whether to opt for darker trousers or stick with the traditional whites is a decision which will be left up to the players themselves to make, with no compulsory choice.
Discussion on the topic will inevitably continue as more leagues and clubs make the decision to permit their women and girls to wear darker trousers.
Lewis Priory CC in Sussex was the first club to shift away from their traditional whites to make their kits more inclusive.
Susie Lanaway, women’s captain at the club at the time, told The Telegraph: “It’s well known that girls stop playing sports as they become teenagers and women. There’s nothing less tempting than playing in whites when you have your period.”
This switch of kit at Lewis Priory CC however made it mandatory for both men and women to wear darker kit, with a ‘one club, one kit’ approach.
This meant no players at the club were left to feel singled out by wearing different kit to the rest of their team, but the Liverpool Comp is yet to move towards this more inclusive approach.
