Think it is a genuinely interesting question. I think everybody needs downtime; but a culture of drinking and partying can definitely become a problem in terms of fitness and attitude.
They have already pretty-much said that it will be T20 format after the current broadcast deal expires.
(Pic: Getty Images for ECB - with permission.)
With England, I assume?
Player auctions manage to combine all the mind-numbing tedium of transfer windows and drafts, with an extra layer of antediluvian ick factor that only seems amplified when applied to women's sports. (IMO)
Meg Lanning, sitting at a table with other Manchester Super Giants staff
Interesting that Meg Lanning is at The Hundred auction, presumably in her capacity as captain of Manchester Super Giants.
Inquiring minds would be interested to know whether she is being paid, and if so how this works with the salary cap?
Almost everyone in the room is male.
A room full of men bidding on women.
If you can't see a problem here, you are the problem.
I'm not sure you can tho? Do you ban LWH from going clubbing with her wife?
(I mean… I'm sure that they would LOL at the idea of them going clubbing at all if they saw this, but…)
LWH is saying that "quite a lot of it" is because coaches are going drinking and clubbing with players, which suggests maybe that there are perhaps more incidents (like… "quite a lot"!) which are going unreported.
What is clear, reading between the lines of what LWH says, is that there is a much wider problem than anyone currently wants to admit.
I suspect in an ideal world the ECB would just like to ban male coaches from having player relationships; but that isn't going to fly vis-a-vis UK equalities legislation, so… here we are.
If you didn't know anything about women's sport, the "easy answer" would be to just ban player-coach relationships full-stop; but obviously you can't do that, because so many of the top players are in relationships, either with coaches or with fellow players who want to move into coaching.
Feels like this is something we've talked about a lot… and not really talked about at all; because we're tiptoeing around a couple of lumbering woolly mammoths!
Interesting conversation here about player-coach relationships (at 30:30) but my goodness, the elephants in the room!
"Well, may I ask what you were expecting to see out of a [Leeds] hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeests swinging majestically…"
Booking stuff for the summer. Premier Inn trying to persuade us to pay £50 to upgrade to a room with a “city view”. In Leeds. 🏏
INDIA v AUSTRALIA – TEST DAY 3: India Crushed as Healy Goes Out on a High
On the CRICKETher Weekly:
* Australia hammer India in the Test
* Where next for Australia and Alyssa Healy?
* England heading to Pretoria for World Cup prep
* Syd wants to help with The Blaze’s rebrand
INDIA v AUSTRALIA - TEST DAY 2: Australian Heroes Journey Continues as Milestones Pass
I'm really pleased to hear the radio team currently calling out the sexism of the failure to provide the right shirt and enough caps for this India team - they are absolutely right that it would not happen to India men...!
Does that include the people in the swimming pool tho? 🏊 🏏
She is allowed her opinion obviously; but… Lisa S is hardly a disinterested neutral observer in the “too much franchise cricket” debate. #AUSvIND 🏏
The Kirstie Gordon of her day!
(Obviously it is not actually technically "First Class" cricket, but… you know what I mean!)
If you are a young man on the county fringes, you will get 20-odd days of "First Class" cricket for your county 2nd XI in 2026 - that's literally *days* of slip fielding practice, if that's your thing.
If you are a young woman, it's zero!
Terrible drop by Sneh Rana, but in her defence you need First Class cricket to develop slip fielding skills - partly because otherwise coaches won't prioritise it in training; but also because no amount of training can replicate actually fielding there "in anger" in a real match. #AUSvIND 🏏
INDIA v AUSTRALIA – TEST DAY 1: Australian Smiles as India Struggle
SB+LWH: You never say "thank you"!
MI London…
