The first-ever recorded women’s cricket match was played on 26 July 1745, exactly 276 years ago. The match was reported in ‘The Reading Mercury’, a match contested “between eleven maids of Bramley and eleven maids of Hambledon, all dressed in white.
The match was played near Guildford in Surrey, as per the Wikipedia page.
The paper described the match as “the greatest cricket match that was played in this part of England.” The daily also mentioned the scores and mentioned that the girls could do all the things boys can. The Hambledon girls won the match.
“The Bramley maids had blue ribbons and the Hambledon maids red ribbons on their heads. The Bramley girls got 119 notches and the Hambledon girls 127. The girls bowled, batted, ran, and caught as well as most men could do.”
Women’s cricket was always a popular sport in Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire. The crowd was a wild one not just because of the rivalry but because of the big bets that were placed before the commencement of the game.
The favorite kind of bets to place the money on were the ones in which the single women players were pitted against their married colleagues. The prizes were the ones that were the more interesting part about this. They ranged from ladylike lace gloves to ladette-style barrels of ale!
The first known women’s cricket club was founded in 1887 in Yorkshire which was named the White Heather Club. Just after three years, a team called the Original English Lady Cricketers toured England and made significant profits but their manager, a heinous human being, stole their hard-earned money and ran away.
A few years later, women all across the globe started playing cricket, and women’s cricket clubs started popping in commonwealth countries like Australia, South Africa, and Canada.
