Where Are All The Female Cricket Coaches?

Other than shooting the sport in the foot, what point are we proving?

Cricket is constantly evolving, a grand, global example of the Ship of Theseus thought exercise. Apart from the broadest concepts of bats and balls, the bright lights and hefty salaries of the modern game bare little resemblance to the sport that first emerged in the 1600s, characterised by underarm bowling and pitches covered in cow shit. Despite inevitable cries that the sky is falling, the game's most significant evolutions tend to focus on pushing the boundaries and reducing inefficiencies, whether by inventing new deliveries, implementing new tactics, or unlocking new scoring shots. Usually, a traceable lineage to those original ship planks lingers; from timeless Tests to ODIs to T10, from bodyline to the Windies to Wagner, from swerve to swing to the wobble ball. Throughout it all, cricket has remained cricket, whatever that happens to denote at the time.

Yet, despite constantly evolving on the field, cricket remains highly suspicious of change in boardrooms and changing rooms worldwide. After all, this is the same sport that didn’t permit women to join the MCC until 1998, 212 years into the organisation’s existence. Or, more recently, the sport that has made some, well...let’s call them “generous exceptions” for the Afghanistan men’s team. In the process, we’ve obstinately clung to a few of those original planks, mangled, misshapen, and rotting, long past their use-by dates.

As such, for all the progress cricket has made with gender equality in recent years, we’ve refused to shed a central, senseless, and downright damaging orthodoxy, namely: why are there so few female coaches in professional cricket? In the modern world of data analytics, cashed-up owners, and bloated backroom staff, this stands out as a massive, glaring inefficiency. I mean, I’m not naive, I know why, on a macro level—sexism, and boys’ clubs, and glass ceilings, and all the rest. To hear Anju Jain, who represented India in 8 Tests and has coached the Indian and Bangladeshi Women’s teams, tell it:

"...even with the Indian team, you'll see, the player only asks most of the time for the male coaches to be there.”

Cricket history is littered with these stories, that’s no great mystery—just read the Equity in Cricket Report if you have any doubts. So, I guess what I’m actually getting at is: why are there still so few female coaches in an era when women’s cricket has otherwise skyrocketed in visibility and popularity? Other than shooting the sport in the foot, what point are we proving? I understand, for physical reasons, why sports are separated by gender; that’s straightforward enough, though not without nuances. But coaching is a mental, strategic, and motivational pursuit: what reason could there possibly be to assert that’s men’s work, and men’s work only? As Lisa Sthaleker put it a decade ago:

“Whoever is the best for the job, whether it be personality, skill set, experience, if you’re good enough to coach, then it shouldn’t matter about your gender.”

That should go without saying, but clearly, it doesn’t. Think about the current system for even a second, and the entire house of cards collapses. Are we seriously expected to believe male coaches are inherently more tactically astute, earning every job meritocratically? That they’re magically better man-managers (well, the phrase isn’t woman-managers, is it)? More emotionally mature communicators? Or, the more insidious reading: that women aren’t qualified to teach men? Laughable! Likewise, am I to believe that Mithali Raj doesn’t know more about batting than almost anyone in history? That Sarah Taylor couldn’t coach wicket-keeping with her hands tied behind her back? That Elyse Perry hasn’t forgotten more about bowling than most male coaches ever knew? Sure, and the sky is red.

Normalising female coaches within cricket shouldn’t even require a grand revolution, but a simple, logical, calculated business decision. If we accept that cricket is fundamentally a business, and the most critical KPI is winning, then why artificially limit your coaching pool to male candidates? Why cut your list of potential applicants in half? Would you do this for any other role? Unlikely. In the business world, studies repeatedly show the benefits of workplace gender diversity, with a recent LinkedIn report finding that organisations in the top quartile for gender diversity have a +25% likelihood of financially outperforming their peers. Why would cricket be any exception?

In a sport where every professional team seeks minute, 1% advantages, employing a male-only coaching staff merely narrows the range of perspectives and experiences a team can call on when the pressure intensifies. No, cast aside anything you may feel about gender politics, women’s sports, and all the rest—that’s simply bad business and worse hiring practice. The sooner boards and owners realise they’re not only hurting the sport by overlooking female coaches, but potentially their bottom lines, too, the better.

The good news is that, at long last, genuine progress is being made, with female coaching representation poised to skyrocket over the next decade. In anticipation, I’ll unpick the history of cricket coaching, before detailing the current state of play for female coaches and speculating on the future.

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A Brief History of Cricket Coaching

Unlike most major team sports, where coaches and managers are inextricably linked with the tactical evolution of the game, cricket was late to the party. George Ramsay managed Aston Villa between 1886 and 1926, and is widely credited as football’s first manager. In 1898, James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, also became its first coach. Rugby took a little longer, though it still beat cricket to the punch. The All Blacks and Springboks began appointing ‘coaches’ from 1949 (really, these were managers), but Ray Williams, who coached Wales throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, is regarded as the sport’s first full-time professional coach.

Pic: George Ramsay, football’s first manager (I mainly included this because look at that moustache.)

By comparison, cricket was a laggard. Coaching, in the broadest sense, existed at the junior levels, and the entire imperial history of cricket (remember, the ICC began life as the Imperial Cricket Conference) is tied to teaching the game throughout ‘the colonies.’ However, for most of cricket’s history, the captain ran things on and off the field, making a coach redundant. As David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd, the England coach from 1996-1999, recalled: “The captain ruled the roost, he was the boss really, and you were there to support him. So I wouldn't cross either of the captains I worked with, Atherton or Stewart." Even the fabled MCC Coaching Manual, long the go-to commentary reference whenever someone attempted a reverse sweep, wasn’t published until 1952.

When touring, teams employed managers or directors to handle logistical concerns like booking flights and hotels and getting to the grounds. But the captain was the man (emphasis, man) when it came to anything cricket-related. In this sense, India was ahead of the pack, becoming the first Test team to appoint a head coach in 1971 when Keki Tarapore filled the role for their famous tour of the West Indies, which India won 1-0. He was succeeded by Hemu Adhikari, who coached India from 1971-74, leading the side to its first series win in England.

Over a decade later, as wild ideas like professionalism, fitness, and nutrition began to gain traction, other Test nations caught up. New Zealand appointed its first head coach, Glenn Turner, in 1985, and Australia and England followed suit in 1986, appointing Bob Simpson and Micky Stewart, respectively. Still, the remaining Test nations dragged their heels. South Africa didn’t appoint a head coach until readmission in 1991 (obviously, there were other factors at play), the West Indies waited until 1992, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka held out until 1995. Pakistan has more than made up for lost time ever since, burning through coaches like only they can. As Bumble’s account above demonstrates, it took longer still for the balance of power to shift and for coaches to exert real influence.

Timeline of International Men’s Test Teams Appointing Their First Head Coach:

• India: 1971(Keki Trapore)

• New Zealand: 1985 (Glenn Turner)

• Australia: 1986 (Bob Simpson)

• England: 1986 (Micky Stewart)

• South Africa: 1991 (Mike Procter)

• West Indies: 1992 (Rohan Kanhai)

• Pakistan: 1995 (Intikhab Alam)

• Sri Lanka: 1995 (Dav Whatmore)

• Bangladesh: 1997 (Gordon Greenidge)

That summarises the men’s side of things. England led the way in the women’s game, appointing Ruth Prideaux as their first head coach in 1988 (albeit, unpaid). Prideaux, who deserves a far more prominent place in cricketing history, was the first woman to hold such a role, having previously been the first woman (alongside former England captain Mary Duggan) to attend and pass the MCC Coaching Course in 1962, attaining an advanced certificate. According to Prideaux’s obituary in The Times, this was “much to the chagrin of several men who failed despite being first-class county cricketers.” When she applied for the England position, Prideaux reportedly told one of her daughters: “I’ll never get the job, because men always do.”

                                        Pic: Ruth Prideaux with Alistair Cook in 2009.

She would have been correct nine times out of 10, but thankfully, this was the exception. Prideaux, who played 11 Tests for England between 1957 and 1963, averaging 31.7, and was married to former England opener Roger Prideaux, was an utter coaching pioneer (I’d highly recommend this profile by Raf Nicholson). Modern female coaches—hell, all modern coaches—owe her an immense debt of gratitude, as Prideaux is credited as one of the first coaches in any sport to employ a backroom staff including nutritionists, physios, and sports psychologists, culminating in England’s 1993 World Cup victory at Lord’s. Before her appointment, Prideaux worked in the Sports Sciences department at the Chelsea College of Physical Education, where she developed many of these ideas. Per Nicholson’s profile:

“Ruth’s coaching program was years ahead of its time; no other sport, including men’s cricket, had utilised sports psychology before. And much of Ruth’s work in these years now serves as the foundation for the elite coaching techniques which are used within both men’s and women’s cricket.”

New Zealand followed suit, with Dayle Hadlee becoming the White Ferns’ first head coach in 1988. Ann McKenna then became the first woman to coach the White Ferns, guiding the team to losing finals in the 1993 and ‘97 World Cups. More recently, Haidee Tiffen and Kari Carswell have also held the position.

Sudah Shah was a similarly foundational figure in Indian women’s cricket. Shah began playing tennis ball cricket with the boys in the late 1960s, practically the inception of the women’s game in India, ultimately retiring in 1997 after representing India in 21 Tests (the record for an Indian woman, including their first Test in 1976) and 13 ODIs. A year after retiring, she was appointed the Indian Women’s coach and has served in several other administrative roles over the years. Anju Jain and Purnima Rau have followed in her footsteps as head coaches of the Indian Women’s team, while Jain was also the Bangladesh Women’s coach between 2018 and 2020.

Surprisingly, Australia were among the last teams to catch on. Despite already being four-time world champions by then, the Australian Women’s side didn’t appoint a head coach until 13 years after England, when Steven Jenkin took the role in 2001. It took until 2007, when Lisa Keightley took over, for a woman to coach the side. These days, Shelley Nitschke has been in the role since 2022.

Jodie Davis remains the only woman to coach Pakistan—in their first World Cup in 1997, which is its own, wild story—while the West Indies, Sri Lankan, and South African Women’s teams have yet to employ a female head coach. To give Cricket South Africa (CSA) some credit, last year, former all-rounder Dinesha Devnarain was appointed in a dual role as CSA’s first full-time Women’s U19 Coach and the Women’s National Academy Head Coach.

This goes some way to explaining the lack of female coaching representation today—the history of cricket coaching at the professional level is relatively brief; still in its nascence, compared to most team sports. For the longest time, women were frozen out of cricket full stop, let alone coaching. The vast majority of male coaches are former players; however, until recently, female cricketers simply didn’t receive the same opportunities. Remember, women’s cricket was initially governed by the International Women’s Cricket Council (IWCC), which didn’t merge with the ICC until 2005. The first woman to pass the MCC Coaching Course didn’t come until 1962, while the first female head coach only got an (unpaid) opportunity in 1988—some turtles are older. With few role models to look up to and even fewer pathways to follow, aspiring female coaches were largely abandoned, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Left to play catch-up, female coaches have only recently gotten opportunities to level the playing field, bringing us to the current state of play.

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The State of Women’s Cricket Coaching

One of the first published references to cricket occurred in 1611, when a French-English dictionary defined the noun crosse as "the crooked staff wherewith boys play at cricket." From its inception, cricket was a boy’s game, with women forced to scratch and claw for a seat at the table.

Little wonder, then, that when you Google ‘Female cricket coaches,’ the first result is a Wikipedia list of the same title, containing just 13 entries. For a sense of scale, the equivalent entries for English, Indian, and Australian men’s coaches contain 283, 195, and 162 names, respectively. The list of Guyanese cricket coaches (15) is two names longer than the list of female coaches. A tiny, South American country with a population of less than 900,000 outpaces an entire gender: something doesn’t add up. Now, obviously, the Wikipedia list is non-exhaustive—there have been more than 13 female cricket coaches, ever—but it is illustrative.

To provide an idea of the state of play, a 2019 Guardian report found that, between 2014 and 2019, 32 women attained Level Three ECB coaching qualifications, compared to 232 men. Since the ECB introduced Level Four coaching qualifications in 2004, seven women have achieved this status compared to more than 200 men. As John Neal, then the ECB’s Head of Coaching Development, bluntly put it:

“I call it the ‘League of Gentlemen. A lot of men in the counties would say: ‘How can a woman coach cricket?’ And to get on to a Level Three course, you had to be nominated by your county. So women couldn’t get onto the course. The League of Gentlemen have blocked female coaches for years.”

This attitude, combined with similar, insidious backroom machinations, long ensured female coaches were rarely even allowed to qualify and prove their mettle, let alone get a foot in the door. It became a vicious, self-fulfilling prophecy, culminating in this sort of tone-deaf quote from Clare Connor, then the ECB’s Director of Women’s Cricket, after Mark Robinson was appointed as the England Women’s coach in 2015:

“There are no female coaches in cricket out there who have the skills, experiences and the proven track record to be in this role.”

Technically, she wasn’t wrong, but, as the obvious rebuttal went: how exactly are female coaches supposed to gain the necessary skills, experiences, and track record if no one’s willing to hire them?

Thankfully, these days, competitions like the WBBL, WPL, and Women’s Hundred have started to provide exactly these sorts of long-overdue opportunities. In the WPL, Charlotte Edwards coaches Mumbai, whom she’s led to two titles in three years, while Rachael Haynes was in charge of Gujarat for their inaugural 2023 season. Mumbai is unique, as they also employ Jhulan Goswami (bowling), Devieka Palshikar (batting), and Nicole Bolton (fielding) as assistant coaches, making them one of the exceedingly few professional cricket teams (perhaps the only) with a female-dominant coaching setup. With a 69% win rate (20 wins from 29 matches) and two titles in three years, the results speak for themselves. Edwards has also coached the Southern Vipers/Southern Brave, winning List A titles in 2020, ‘21, and ‘23, along with three T20 titles, taking out the aptly-named Charlotte Edwards Cup in ‘22 and ‘23, and the Women’s Hundred in ‘23. Last month, she was announced as the new England Women’s head coach.

Pic: Charlotte Edwards, shortly after being announced as the new England Women’s Head Coach. 

Sticking with the Women’s Hundred, Lisa Keightley is also in charge of the Northern Superchargers. In the freshly re-launched Women’s County competition, Danielle Hazell coaches Durham in Tier One, while in Tier Two, Rachel Priest and Alexia Walker are in charge of Glamorgan and Sussex, respectively. Edwards and Keightley also hold positions in the WBBL, coaching the Sixers and Thunder, while Jude Coleman and Rebecca Grundy are in charge of the Hurricanes and Scorchers (plus Tasmania and Western Australia in the WNCL). Erin Osbourne also heads the ACT Meteor in the WNCL.

In the international arena, Edwards, as mentioned, recently took over the England Women’s role, winning her first T20 series 3-0 against the West Indies this week. Shelley Nitschke has been the Australian Women’s head coach since September 2022, winning the T20 World Cup in 2023.

However, you’ll notice one missing piece: men have coached women’s sides, men have coached men’s sides, women have coached women’s sides, but, nearing the 150th anniversary of Test cricket, we are yet to have a female head coach of a men’s professional cricket team. There have been limited examples at lower levels—Lisa Sthalaker was the head coach of the Mosman men’s team in Sydney grade cricket, former West Indies bowler Tremayne Smartt coached the Berbice Under-13s team, and, perhaps most notably, former Indian batter VR Vanitha was the head coach of the Shivamogga Lions (who had several players with IPL experience in their squad, including Shreyas Gopal) in the Maharaja Trophy T20, having previously worked as a scout for RCB. Yet, in the professional arena, Sarah Taylor has come the closest. It’s apt that Taylor was the one to break this new ground, so often the subject of hypothetical ‘could she play men’s cricket?’ discussions throughout her career (answer: yes, becoming the first woman to play men’s grade cricket in Australia in 2015). In 2021, Taylor made history when she became the Sussex wicketkeeping coach, marking the first time in the storied 134-year history of the County Championship that a woman was appointed as a specialist coach for a senior men's side. In an interview after the announcement, Taylor said:

“When it comes to knowledge of the game, it’s exactly the same–there should be no differentiation between a female coach and a male coach.”

It truly is that simple.

Taylor added to her resume when she was hired as the assistant coach of Team Abu Dhabi in the T10 League and as an assistant for the Manchester Originals men's and women's sides in the Hundred. Most recently, Taylor broke further ground when she joined the England Lions as wicketkeeping coach for their tour of South Africa last year, making her, per the BBC, “the first woman to join an international men's setup.” With any luck, many more will follow. Taylor will continue in the role throughout the upcoming England Lions vs India A series, having also been an assistant coach for the recent County Select XI vs Zimbabweans warm-up match.

                                 Pic: Sarah Taylor Coaching the Manchester Originals. 

There have been other examples here and there, with Lisa Keightley serving as the Paarl Royals’ Tactical Performance Coach in 2022, while Catherine Dalton and Alex Hartley currently work as the Fast Bowling Coach and Assistant Spin Bowling Coach for the Multan Sultans in the PSL, who also have a female General Manager in Hijab Zahid. Hands up if Pakistan being the first country to employ two female coaches in a men’s professional cricket team was on your bingo card? In an interview with George Dobell, Sultans’ owner Ali Khan Tareen said he simply looked for the best candidates, regardless of gender, when assembling his coaching team:

"I realised a few years ago that this person [Catherine Dalton] is probably the best technical bowling coach I've ever met. I knew if I ever have an opportunity to hire someone, it would definitely be Catherine."

                                 Pic: Hartley and Dalton coaching the Multan Sultans. 

This (apparently) novel concept—hiring the best coaches and administrators for the job—should be self-explanatory, but it’s an attitude fellow owners could learn plenty from.

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Establishing Pathways

It’s one thing to assert, in the abstract, that there should be more professional female cricket coaches. But what, exactly, is the sport doing to discover, support, and encourage them? How are we unbuilding years of obstacles and prejudice?

Therefore, just as relevant as the female coaches currently working on the global circuit are the systems and pathways being established for the future. These are essential to develop a self-sustaining system and ensure the current era of progress isn’t a blip. In that area, Australia leads the way, long the standard-bearers for professionalism in women’s cricket.

Earlier in May, Queensland Cricket announced the four inaugural members of its Elite Cricket Women’s Coach Program (including two former Queensland representatives), which is “designed to prepare coaches for Premier First Grade and Elite Cricket levels.” Last November, Cricket Tasmania launched its first Female Learning Lab, inviting 20 prospective female coaches to work alongside current Hurricanes players and Australian Women’s Assistant Coach Dan Marsh. At the start of this month, Cricket Victoria held its first Female Only Advanced Coaching Course (with more scheduled), welcoming 24 participants, including two members of the Afghanistan women’s team that recently played an exhibition match.

In late 2023, Cricket NSW held a workshop for 43 female coaches, aiming to give “trainee coaches confidence in organising engaging learning environments for female cricketers at the community level.” Last December, Cricket Australia launched Project Inspire. Run by Australian legend Belinda Clark, the 10-month immersive course aims to “support women from all backgrounds who are passionate about cricket and want to make a positive impact in their communities.” These programs only scratch the surface, as much of this work is underpinned by the Australian Cricketers’ Association’s Female Leadership Program and the Australian Institute of Sport’s Women in High Performance Coaching (WIHPC) initiative, launched in late 2022.

Across the Tasman, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) established its Female Leadership Development Framework in 2021. Since then, they have launched the Pathway to Performance Women in Coaching program, with graduates already going on to fill roles such as the Wellington U19 Women’s Head Coach, Central Districts U19 Women’s Head Coach, NZ Māori Schoolgirls Coach, and Samoa Women’s Head Coach. High Performance Sport New Zealand has also run Te Hāpaitanga since 2020, an 18-month holistic course that includes one-on-one mentorship from a current female high-performance coach.

According to Aarti Sankaran, who works with the women’s U15 and U19 development teams at the BCCI Centre of Excellence, similar efforts are underway in India, explaining in a recent interview with the ABC:

“The BCCI Centre of Excellence is 100% doing a lot of things to develop [like] courses, mentorship programs to ensure that you get the women coaches up to speed and find out what the modern ways that we can also develop. We are doing that because we are seeing that there is a gap, we have to fill that gap, that is the way forward."

In England, the ECB ran its first Women’s Leadership Development Program this February, while Middlesex have also launched a mentoring program for female coaches, with other counties following suit.

Other nations are less advanced. In 2023, Sri Lanka Cricket launched a Level '0’ Women’s Coaching Program, targeted at women currently coaching in school and club cricket to “enhance women’s cricket across the country by creating a women’s coaching pool.” Note the use of ‘create’, not develop—SLC is trying to build a pool of professional female coaches essentially from scratch. Similarly, in April, Cricket West Indies held a Women’s Emerging Players High-Performance camp, aimed at women aged 25 and under. Seventeen players left the camp as accredited Level 1 coaches.

Globally, the ICC launched the 100% Cricket Future Leaders Program in 2021. The 2024 edition focused on two specialisations: administration and coaching, hosting workshops worldwide. The program’s positive results were on full display at the 2025 U19 Women’s World Cup, where, compared to the inaugural 2023 edition:

• The number of women in coaching roles rose from 12 to 20, eight of whom were graduates of the 100% Cricket Future Leaders Program.

• The number of female head coaches rose from five to seven.

                           Pic: The 100% Cricket Future Leaders Program class of 2024. 

Notably, Australia, Samoa, and Scotland employed all-female coaching teams at the tournament, while the Nigerian and South African coaching teams were primarily female. The ICC also launched a Training and Education Program in 2021, which has seen 30,503 course completions across 14 languages. As a result of this program, the ICC now has “41 certified Master Coach Educators and 17 Master Umpire Educators, with 41% female representation.”

Worldwide, the IOC runs the Women in Sport High-Performance (WISH) program. So far, there have been 120 graduates across 22 sports, including Tamara Taylor, National Coaching Developer for the English Rugby Union. In a recent interview, Taylor praised the program, while also hoping that, eventually, such initiatives won’t be necessary:

"I hope that one day these programs won't be needed, because actually, sport will just be sport, and coaches will be coaches."

Make no mistake: these are all fantastic, laudable initiatives which plant the seeds for future success. With any luck, we’ll watch these programs go from strength to strength in the coming years, nurturing the next generation of female coaches. However, they also share an unfortunate commonality: some of these programs are mere weeks into their existence, many just months, while the oldest was established in 2021—it’s not even old enough to attend primary school. Compare that to the Australian Cricket Academy, established in 1987, or even the National Cricket Academy in India, founded in 2000, and you get a sense of the ground still to cover. At least the first dominoes are finally falling—better late than never.

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The Wide World of Sports

To gain a clearer picture of where this path may ultimately lead us, it is instructive to compare and analyse other sports’ relationships with female coaches. The first thing you’ll realise (if there was any doubt) is that this is far from a cricket-specific issue. For context, at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 47% of athletes were female vs just 13% of coaches. Technically, this represents progress, up from a paltry 9% in 2016. Similarly, across all three NCAA divisions in American college sports, only 41% of women’s teams have female head coaches, plummeting to 6% of men’s teams.

Looking at the world game, football seems to be marginally ahead of cricket in hiring female managers, but not by much. In 1999, Carolina Morace, now a member of the European Parliament, made history when she took the helm of Italian third-division side US Viterbese 1908, widely believed to be the first time a woman managed a men’s professional football team in any capacity. Regrettably, Morace’s stint was short-lived, lasting only two matches before resigning due to interference from the club’s owner. In 2014, Helena Costa became the “first female manager to be appointed in the highest two divisions of any professional European league” when she was made manager of French second-division side Clermont Foot 63. Like Morace, Costa’s tenure was short-lived, though she was succeeded by Corinne Diacre, the second woman to hold such a position. Diacre’s tenure lasted three seasons, guiding the club to mid-table finishes (12th, 7th, and 12th, out of 20 teams) before leaving to assume a position as the France Women’s manager.

Pic: Italian representative Carolina Morace, the first woman to manage a men’s professional football team. 

In 2021, Helen Nkwocha became the first woman to manage a men’s top-division team in Europe, taking the helm for Tvøroyrar Bóltfelag of the Faroe Islands (population: 54,482). In 2023, Hannah Dingley served as Forest Green Rovers' caretaker manager for two weeks in the preseason, becoming the first woman to lead a professional English men’s team. Sabrina Wittmann has managed German third-division club FC Ingolstadt since 2024, the first female manager in any of the top three German men’s football divisions. Likewise, Renate Blindheim has managed the Norwegian second-division club Sotra since 2020, another first. Examples are rarer in international football, with Patrizia Panico coming the closest: she managed the Italy Men’s U15 team from 2018-21 and also served as an assistant for Italy U21.

However, Chan Yuen Ting is the female football manager to have achieved the most in the men’s game: she is the first (currently only) woman to win a men’s top division league, leading Eastern to the 2015-16 Hong Kong Premier League title with a dominant 12-2-2 record.

Currently, there are six female managers out of 12 clubs in the Women’s Super League and 4 female managers out of 16 clubs in the 24/25 season of the Women’s Champions League (with Renée Slegers winning this week with Arsenal). At the 2023 Women’s Football World Cup, 12/32 managers were women, although only one (England’s Sarina Wiegman) survived until the quarter-finals. Still, progress remains gradual, with a 2019 FIFA survey finding that more than 13 million women play football worldwide, yet only 7% of coaches are women.

As such, last year, United States Women’s Team Manager Emma Hayes was asked whether football club owners are “ready” for female managers, pulling no punches in reply:

"Of course they're not, otherwise it would have happened by now. I've said this a million times over–you can find a female pilot, a female doctor, a female lawyer, a female banker, but you can't find a female coach working in the men's game, leading men. It just shows you how much work there is to be done."

The major American sports have also made significant strides over the past decade. Fifteen women have worked as assistant coaches in the NBA, beginning with Becky Hammon at the San Antonio Spurs in 2014. In 2020, Hammon became the first female acting head coach in NBA history, assuming the role for the Spurs after regular coach Gregg Popovich was ejected from a game against the Lakers. Currently, there are four female assistant coaches in the NBA for the Pacers, Hawks, Lakers, and Grizzlies.

As of 2023, there were 43 female coaches in Major League Baseball. Alyssa Nakken became the first full-time female coach in MLB when she joined the San Francisco Giants in 2020. That same year, Kim Ng was named the Miami Marlins’ general manager, making her the first woman to hold a GM position for any professional men's team in the major North American sports.

As of the 2024/25 season, 15 female coaches were working in the NFL. Jen Welter became the first in 2015, while even the NHL has made progress, with Jessica Campbell becoming the league’s first female coach when she was hired as an assistant for the Seattle Kraken in 2024. In Tennis, Andy Murray famously worked with a female coach, Amélie Mauresmo, but other examples are rarer.

So, while progress is being made, as is often the case with these sorts of things, it is non-linear. In other leagues, the increased money and interest in women’s sports have led to more male coaches seeking a slice of the pie, further diminishing opportunities for female candidates. The Premiership Women's Rugby (PWR) competition is a prime example of this trend. When PWR launched in 2023, there were five female head coaches out of nine teams. At the start of the current season, that had dropped to two. Now, with Susie Appleby and Rachel Taylor being dismissed by Exeter and Sale, respectively, there are zero. At times, it will be two steps forward and one backwards.

Elsewhere, all sorts of negative stereotypes hold female coaches back. Last year, a survey of 1,586 NFL and NBA fans showed a vocal minority believe the following stereotypes:

• Female coaches are less qualified than male coaches (31.5%)

• Male athletes won’t respect them (30%)

• Female coaches are unable to control the locker room (26.2%)

• Teams coached by women are less successful than teams coached by men (15.4%)

Of course, this is nothing new for female coaches, who have faced such prejudices throughout their entire careers. Reassuringly, the vast majority of respondents (82.2%) agreed that it is important for female coaches to be represented more across all leagues and age groups.

My favourite female coaching success story, though, is Liz Mills’. Mills, an Australian who started coaching local junior boys and girls teams in 2002 while still in high school, became the first female head coach of a men’s team at a FIBA event when she led Kenya to the Round of 16 at the 2021 AfroBasket. Previously, she was an assistant coach for the Zambia and Cameroon men’s national teams.

How did a young Sydneysider end up coaching the Kenyan men’s basketball team? Mills’ break came while she was volunteering in Zambia, and a friend invited her to watch a local club team practice. Mills thought she could do better, so she threw caution to the wind and asked one of the players to introduce her to the club president, recalling: “...[he] was very open-minded, so we have a chat and he said, ‘OK, you can have an hour of practice.’ That hour soon turned into another training session, then another, and the rest is history.

                                      Pic: Liz Mills with the Kenyan basketball team. 

Mills subsequently became the first female head coach in the Basketball Africa League with the ABC Fighters and the first female head coach of a men's club team in Morocco with AS Salé. For Mills, it was a case of wanting to emulate her role models, explaining:

“...seeing coaches like Carrie Graf and Jan Sterling, these were head coaches of women’s teams in the 90s and early 2000s. I think that put the idea in my head that, I’m not going to be a great player, but I could be a great coach. I saw these strong, successful, intelligent women winning the league [WNBL]. If they can do it, I can do it.”

Imagine that. Seeing successful female role models encouraged Mills to pursue a coaching career. What a concept—it’ll never catch on! Except, studies have repeatedly proven Mills’ point, with 66% of women attributing their interest in sports to the positive influence of female athletes in a recent survey. Coaching is no different, and thankfully, for the next generation of Liz Mills’, there are more role models to emulate than ever before.

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Commentary, Umpiring, and Beyond

In the build-up to the 2017 Ashes, Channel Nine were lambasted after posting a photo of their commentary team for that summer on Twitter. If you don’t remember the offending image, take a look and see if you can guess the issue.

                                             Pic: What do you mean ‘boy’s club’?!                             

Can you spot it? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist: eight straight, white men wearing varying shades of black and blue. Chappelli’s hat and Bill Lawry’s wristwatch offer the greatest bits of diversity. Tone-deaf barely covers it.

Following the backlash this image generated, things have changed significantly, for the better, in the world of cricket commentary. Eight years on, it is exceedingly rare to tune into a cricket match and not hear several female commentators among the broadcast team. The sport is immeasurably richer, fuller, and more enjoyable thanks to the insights of Guha, Mitchell, Sthalekar, Jones, and co. I can’t help but feel that female cricket coaches need an equivalent ‘enough is enough’ moment to draw attention to the issue and spur meaningful, lasting change. What will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? What will finally force administrators to reckon with their ridiculous, nonsensical orthodoxy that men make better coaches?

Since 2003, the NFL has used the ‘Rooney Rule.’ Essentially, the rule requires teams to interview women and minority candidates for head coaching and certain front office roles before hiring someone, intending to increase diversity in NFL coaching and administration. Within three years of being implemented, the percentage of African-American head coaches in the NFL had risen from 6% (2/32 in 2002) to 22% (7/32 by 2006). As of the start of the 2024 season, this had increased to 9 minority head coaches out of 32 teams. While the rule hasn’t been without critics—some candidates are understandably wary of being seen as ‘quota’ hires—it has been successful enough that the England men’s football team followed suit in 2018, while the West Coast Conference (an NCAA Division I league) implemented a similar requirement in 2020, naming it the Russell Rule after basketball legend Bill Russell. Could cricket benefit from an equivalent to the Rooney Rule—the Lanning Law, perhaps, or the Raj Regulation? Whatever the solution, something has to change.

Like commentary, umpiring has also undergone a quiet revolution recently, providing an even more precise comparison to coaching. Like coaching, umpiring is an area of the game where women have been iced out, despite requiring no gender-specific skills. If you have working eyes, sound judgement, a thorough understanding of the Laws of Cricket, and the desire to stand in a field all day and occasionally raise your finger, you should be able to umpire. Yet, 99.9% of the sport’s history suggests otherwise. It’s promising, then, that female umpires have shattered several barriers in recent years, offering hope that female coaches will follow a similar trajectory.

Just over a decade ago, Kathy Cross became the first woman to be appointed to an ICC Umpiring Panel, having previously been the first woman to officiate a Test in any form, when she was the fourth umpire for a women’s Test between New Zealand and England in 2002. In 2014, Cross was added to the ICC Associate and Affiliate Panel of Umpires, which made her eligible to officiate in World Cricket League Divisions 3 to 6.

Ever since, we’ve seen a slew of firsts:

• The first female umpire in an Australian men’s domestic fixture (Claire Polosak, in 2017).

• The first time two female umpires officiated in the same match (Polosak and Eloise Sheridan, in a WBBL fixture in 2018).

• The first female umpire in a men’s ODI (also Polosak, in 2019).

• The first woman to be appointed to the ICC’s International Panel of Match Referees (G.S. Lakshmi, in 2019—now, nine women are on said panel).

• The first female umpire in a men’s Test (Polosak, in 2021).

• The first female umpire in a men’s T20 between full member nations (Kim Cotton in 2023).

• The first female umpires in a Sheffield Shield fixture (Polosak and Eloise Sheridan, in 2023).

• The first female umpire in a County Championship fixture (Sue Redfern, in 2023).

         Pic: Claire Polosak preparing to umpire a Test between Australia and India in 2021. 

Now, nine women are among the ICC Emerging Umpires Group, a “development squad comprising individuals from the Emirates International Panel of Umpires who have been identified as the most deserving of stretch opportunities.” Given this momentum, a woman joining the ICC Elite Panel of Umpires feels like the next inevitable step—something that seemed unthinkable a decade ago. Hopefully, ten years down the line, female coaches will find themselves in a similar position, reflecting on a decade of firsts and broken barriers.

Recently, we have seen cricket grow in several new directions, like an octopus haphazardly stretching its limbs after a restless sleep. We have more weird, wacky, and wonderful teams than ever—T10 teams, Hundred teams, Icelandic teams, Major League teams, South African teams named after Indian cities. You name it, we’ve got it. At the same time, women’s cricket has never been more visible, nor in better health. Crowds have never been larger, from the 86,174 who showed up for the 2020 T20 World Cup Final to 23,207 who showed up to Trent Bridge for the 2023 Women’s Ashes Test. With a reported $160 million valuation and a $176 million five-year broadcast deal in its back pocket, the WPL is the world's second most valuable women’s sports league, behind only the WNBA.

Yet, despite this growth in the women’s game and the myriad of new professional teams competing globally, the two haven’t met in the middle: a female head coach has still not helmed a men’s professional cricket team. At least, after years of stagnation, there are finally signs of life, movement, and hope, with inroads being made and pathways established piece by piece. Eventually, the dam has to burst—it’s a matter of when, not if. When this barrier is finally broken, the sport will be infinitely richer for opening itself up to different voices and perspectives, and accepting, funnily enough, that coaching has more to do with what’s between your ears than your legs.

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