The developmental activities of women’s professional pathway cricketers

ABSTRACT

The growth of investment in women’s cricket has led to the development of new professional pathways. However, there is lack of specific evidence to support the development of these athletes. This study aimed to take a first step in understanding the participation histories of female cricketers selected into English women’s professional academies. 84 players completed the Participation History Questionnaire (PHQ) to capture details of activities engaged in across development, including milestones, cricket activity, and engagement in other sport activities. There were relative age effects where players' birthdate distributions differed from national norms (X² = 8.451, p = .003, V = 0.227), and more players than expected attended independent schools (X² = 7.980, p = .005, V = 0.232). Participants engaged in cricket informally before coach led training, have siblings (particularly brothers) interested in cricket and often played boy’s cricket before engaging in the girl’s or women’s game. Developmental activities were characterised by early engagement, high levels of diversification, and very low levels of play compared to high levels of formal practice and match play. These findings have implications for the advancement of talent identification and development policies and processes in women’s cricket.

KEYWORDS:

• Talent
• identificaiton
• development
• female athlete
• practice

Introduction

Women’s cricket has seen rapid growth, with eight new professional regions and player pathways launched in England and Wales in 2019 and further expansion plans announced in 2024. Gender is an important consideration for talent development in sport (Blagrove et al., 2017; Ford et al., 2020; Lascu et al., 2021), adolescent females display faster development of motor skills and emotional control (Valtr et al., 2016; Yücel et al., 2012). However, only 10.3% of studies on talent in sport have solely focused on female athletes (Baker et al., 2020). There is a broad evidence based on talent identification and development in men’s cricket (Brown et al., 2021; Jones et al., 2019, 2020) and emerging evidence in women’s football (Ford et al., 2020), but there is currently limited context and gender-specific evidence to support practitioners working with female cricketers.

Numerous factors have been shown to affect the development of athletes such as birthplace and age effects, exposure to sport, practice, and play (Baker et al., 2020, 2022). In men’s sport, including cricket, particular attention has been paid to the effects of birthdates and locations, family, schooling, sport-specific milestones, practice activities, and diversification in other sports (Bridge & Toms, 2013; Kelly, Brown, et al., 2022). The relative age effect, where a selection advantage is gained from being born early in age group cut-offs, has been shown in men’s cricket (Cobley et al., 2009; Kelly et al., 2021; Kelly, Brown, et al., 2022). However, it has been suggested the effect may not exist in women’s sport (Abel et al., 2011; Andrew et al., 2022) and, to date, no data has been published in women’s cricket. As well as the date, birthplace can also affect one’s chances of success. For example, being born in a medium-sized town can increase the likelihood of an individual playing high-level sport (Côté et al., 2006). In cricket access to facilities can be more limited in urban settings, but again no data has shown how this affects the women’s game.

Facilities in the local area are not the only factor affecting exposure to sports, family can also be a significant influence (Warmenhoven et al., 2021). In men’s cricket, having an older sibling could be a predictor of future success (Jones et al., 2020), and once introduced to the game, schooling is likely to influence further engagement with sport with significantly more player’s attend independent schools than would be expected against population norms (Brown et al., 2021). Early exposure to sport in family, school, or other settings can play an important role in the development of athletes and can be the first in a list of important milestones. For example, early exposure from any cause has been shown to be important in the development of footballers (Ford et al., 2009). Other milestones in cricket, including the time at which a male batter makes debuts at different levels are a predictor of future success (Jones et al., 2020). However, after first engagement in a sport, reaching these milestones will be heavily influenced by how individuals spend their time within the sport as well as how much they engage in other sports and hobbies (Ford & Williams, 2017b; Jones et al., 2020). In women’s sport, activities may be affected by sociocultural factors that mean opportunities differ from those afforded to male players (Coletti et al., 2022; deJonge et al., 2023).

One such outcome of difference in sociocultural factors can be access to opportunities for practice and play. The concept of deliberate practice (Ericsson, 1998, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2013; Ericsson & Pool, 2016; Ericsson et al., 1993) has been influential in understanding activities that lead to skill development. It is generally characterised as coach-led, effortful, and involves feedback and working on errors. The central construct is that more deliberate practice will lead to higher levels of performance and gives rise to the prospect that the earlier a child starts engaging in specialised practice, the more likely they are to become a high-level performer (Zibung & Conzelmann, 2013). It has been previously argued that early specialisation in a single sport predicts later success (Coutinho, Mesquita, & Fonseca, 2016; Coutinho, Mesquita, Davids, et al., 2016). However, there has also been evidence to suggest that specialising too early into a single sport may also decrease one’s chances of becoming successful and increase the chances of burnout and injury (Bergeron et al., 2015; Giusti et al., 2020; McDonald et al., 2019). Female athletes face greater risks of injury and burnout from early specialisation (Hayano et al., 2021). Specifically, within cricket, specialising too early has been correlated with numerous injuries concerning the back, shoulders, and legs (McGrath & Finch, 1996).

An alternative to specialisation and deliberate practice is diversification of sporting hobbies and engaging in play (for reviews, see Côté & Erickson, 2015; Côté et al., 2007, 2009). Deliberate play is directed by the children themselves and is engaged in with the intention of fun and enjoyment, probably enhancing intrinsic motivation (Côté & Hay, 2002). Therefore, childhood sports activities can be characterised in terms of specialisation or diversification and accumulation of practice and/or play (Ford & Williams, 2017b; Sieghartsleitner et al., 2018).Voigt and Hohmann (2016) suggest that diversification can occur within a single sport (micro-situation) or across multiple sports (macro-situation), and both forms have been shown to predict success. Athletes have reported and displayed multiple benefits from this development pathway, including improved general motor abilities (Goodway & Robinson, 2015), sustained motivation and increased burnout prevention (Murata et al., 2021), and increased enjoyment (Côté & Hancock, 2016). Furthermore, research has acknowledged that high levels of deliberate play between and within sports during childhood can promote increased skill development, which can then be transferred to the sport specialised in as an adolescent (Ford & Williams, 2012; Forsman et al., 2016).

Research to date has generally failed to address how gender may influence engagement in these developmental activities (Ford & Williams, 2017b; Ford et al., 2020). For example, there are gender-based differences in engagement with physical activity during childhood and adolescence (e.g., Sherar et al., 2007; Thompson et al., 2003) and socio-cultural factors, such as school playground environments, can also influence the ability for female athletes to engage in play (Clark & Paechter, 2007; Mayeza, 2017). One of the few studies to address these issues found that female athletes in Australia took part in significant levels of sport-specific practice during their development but had greater diversity in sport participation, when compared to their male counterparts (Baker et al., 2003). However, in Canada, time spent in the primary sport during development did not differentiate male and female triathletes (Hodges et al., 2004). Three other studies have assessed the developmental activities of in female soccer players (Ford et al., 2020; Gullich, 2018; Hendry et al., 2019). These studies generally showed a high level of specialisation and low levels of diversity and play in soccer players from a variety of nations. Results differ somewhat from other sports and research in male athletes and do not address directly whether the players are playing women’s sport or participating in boys’ and men’s teams.

Girls will often engage in boys' sport due to lack of options or for higher levels of challenge (Coletti et al., 2022; deJonge et al., 2023). For example, findings have shown perceived increased skill acquisition in female cricketers when participating in boy’s/men’s cricket (Lascu et al., 2021). A notable reason for this is that men’s cricket could provide more of a challenge and thus an opportunity for greater skill development than women’s cricket. However, lack of opportunities for girls’ and women’s sport could also lead to increased levels of drop out and a smaller talent pool. Currently, no data is available in sport in general or in cricket on time spent playing men’s or women’s games during development.

The lack of talent research in women’s sport leaves governing bodies with a lack of nuanced evidence with which to develop new professional systems. This study aims to take a first step in developing this evidence for women’s cricket base by using participation history questionnaires to understand the development of female cricketers in English professional academies, including birthdate and birthplace effects, family, schooling, early engagement, sport-specific milestones, deliberate practice and play, and diversification and specialisation.

Methods

Participants

Eighty-four players who were currently enrolled on regional academy programmes within the eight women’s professional cricket regions within England and Wales took part. This sample represents 75% of the entire population of women’s academy players in England and Wales at the time of data collection. Women’s regional academies sit above the county age group structure and do not have age grouped teams. Players in this sample were aged between 15 and 21 years old (mean = 18.40 ± 1.95). 15 players had already played a full professional match with 11 having professional contracts and 73 players enrolled full time in the regional academy. Table 1 shows the self-reported playing positions of the participants. Ethical approval was granted from the lead institution and informed consent was given by all players and parents or guardians for those under 16.

Table 1. Participants self-reported playing positions. WK = wicketkeeper, AR = allrounder.

Position	N	Age (mean years ± SD)
Batter	17	18.35 ± 1.25
Seam bowler	20	18.48 ± 0.84
Spin bowler	9	18.18 ± 0.75
Wicket keeper	9	18.31 ± 1.44
All-rounder (spin)	10	18.87 ± 1.28
All-rounder (seam)	9	18.49 ± 1.87
All-rounder (not specified)	10	17.99 ± 1.42

Questionnaire

Participation history questionnaires (PHQ) that capture retrospective recall of training activities and injuries during development have been widely implemented across a variety of performance settings (Fawver et al., 2023; Ford & Williams, 2012; Ford et al., 2010; Kelly, Brown, et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2024). It was first implemented by Ward et al. (2007) who collected retrospective and longitudinal data and found the PHQ approach to be valid and reliable. The PHQ was originally applied to cricket by Ford et al. (2010) to obtain retrospective information regarding training experience within the specific domain. Here participants completed PHQ for cricket with adaptations specific to the needs of women’s cricket (see Supplement 1).

The questionnaire begins by gathering data on the participant’s date and place of birth, current and highest playing level, and whether their siblings also partook in sports (if they have any). Following this are three main sections in this PHQ. The first section concerns the age at which the participant entered each cricket level (e.g., “how old were you when you started supervised cricket training?”) and reached any cricket-specific milestones, that is, achievements within cricket signifying a high skill level. For our PHQ, we included age of achieving the first 100 and first 5 wicket haul at different levels. These milestones were added at the request of the cricket partner organisation as these are highly important in cricketing culture and generally recorded as the main batting and bowling milestone statistics. The second section regarded engagement in other sports, where participants selected which sports, they had trained in (for at least 3 months) from a table, then further indicated the age they started and finished this training, and how many hours a week and months a year they trained. Additionally, participants provided a free-text description of time spent and highest level reached in any non-sport-related activities. The final section focused on developmental activities. As in previous work with the PHQ (e.g., Ford et al., 2020) participants worked backward in steps of 2 years from their current age to indicate how many months a year and hours a week they spent training in either match-play, practice, or peer-led play, and provide a percentage of how much of that time was spent training with males versus females at each age (see Supplement 1). We considered match-play as “organised competition in a group engaged in with the intention of winning and supervised by adult(s)”, practice as “activity engaged in with the intention of improving performance, either alone or in group supervised by coach(es) or adult(s)”, and peer-led play as “play-type games with rules supervised by yourself/peers and engaged in with the intention of fun and enjoyment” (Roca et al., 2012).

It is worth noting that since talent development in female athletes is so under-researched, we not only adapted the PHQ questions for cricket but also included several new areas of investigation to better explore relevant factors for success. This included queries regarding whether siblings played any sports, how much of cricket training was spent with males versus females, and time spent engaging in non-sporting hobbies. We included these questions due to interest displayed from our sport partners.

Procedure

Participants were invited to complete the questionnaire, which was conducted entirely online via the survey platform, Qualtrics (Qualtrics, Provo, UT). This was done in their own time, with no time limit. At the very beginning of the questionnaire, participants read a briefing of the study and were required to complete a form consenting to their data being used and stored, as well as acknowledging their right to withdraw at any point.

Data analysis

For the birth quarter distribution, chi-square (χ2) analysis was used to compare the observed sample against the expected distribution based on population values (see Kelly, Brown, et al., 2022; Office for National Statistics, 2015, 2021). Two participants did not report their birthday. We also used chi-square (χ2) analysis to compare the size of town of birth and type of secondary school to national norms but using % data as this is all that is publicly available. The Cramer’s V was used to calculate effect sizes for chi-square analysis and was interpreted as per conventional thresholds for correlation, whereby a value of 0.06 or more would indicate a small effect size, 0.17 or more would indicate a medium effect size and 0.29 or more would indicate a large effect size (Cohen, 1988). For analysis for engagement in cricket-specific activities, we used a 5 (age category) by 3 (activity type) repeated measures ANOVA. The five age categories were used due to lower numbers of responses for ages under 8 and over 18 so the five ages 10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 years. We also used these ages plus 8 years old for the six (age) by two (men’s or women’s) ANOVA used to analyse engagement in the men’s and women’s games. For ANOVA, a Bonferroni adjustment was employed when multiple comparisons were made (McLaughlin & Sainani, 2014). Partial eta squared (η_p²) was used as a measure of effect size. The alpha level (p) for statistical significance was set at 0.05. For milestones and other sporting activities we present only descriptive statistics.

Results

Full descriptive statistics for it can be found in Supplement 2.

Birthdate

The distribution of the players birth quarters differed to national norms with a small effect (Figure 1; X² (df = 3, N = 82) = 8.451, p = .003, V = 0.227). The distributions by self-reported playing position can be found in Figure 2. There was no significant difference to expected norms for all-rounders X² (df = 3, N = 29) = 2.935, p = .402, V = 0.227), seam bowlers X² (df = 3, N = 19) = 1.594, p = .660, V = 0.202), or spin bowlers X² (df = 3, N = 9) = 2.818, p = .420; V = 0.403), but there was for batters X² (df = 3, N = 16) = 8.123, p = .044, V = 0.501; Figure 2) who showed overrepresentation of players born in Q1 and Q2 and underrepresentation in Q3 and Q4.

Figure 1. The observed and expected distributions of all players compared to national norms.

Figure 2. The observed and expected distributions of players by self-reported position compared to national norms.

Birthplace and schooling

The distribution of the town where players were born can be found in Figure 3 and where they attended primary or secondary school, and the type of secondary school can be found in Figure 4. Normative data is only available for town of birth and type of school. There was no significant difference to expected norms for birth town size X² (df = 8, N = 100) = 12.179, p = .143, V = 0.220). There was a significant difference to norms for type of school attended where an overrepresentation (27.05%) of player’s attending independent and an underrepresentation attending state school was displayed (X² (df = 8, N = 100) = 7.980, p = .005, V = 0.232).

Figure 3. The observed and expected distributions of players by the size of town of birth. The population of London is approximately 8.5–9 million people.

Figure 4. The observed and expected distributions of players by type of school (a) and distributions of players by size of town in which they attended secondary (b) and primary (c) school.

Siblings

Of the 84 players who responded, there was an average of 1.3 siblings meaning average number of children in families of 2.3, slightly higher than the 1.92 national average (Office for National Statistics, 2021). Three participants did not have siblings and three have siblings who don’t play any sports. The most common sibling was an older brother (n = 40), followed by younger brother (n = 27), younger sister (n = 23) and older sister (n = 17). 78 players in the sample have sports playing siblings, 68 of whom have siblings who also play cricket.

Milestones

The average age at which player’s reach each of the identified cricketing milestones are displayed in Figure 5. As levels of performance increase, the number of the sample who have reached that milestone decreases, ending with 15 out of the 84 players have played at full professional level.

Figure 5. The average (±SE) age at which player’s reached cricketing milestones. Levels of performance increase from left to right, so not all player’s have reached every milestone in the figure.

Cricket specific activities

There was a significant main effect of age on hours per year engaged in cricket-specific activities (F_{4, 88} = 27.624, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.557) where there were significant increases in number of hours (p < 0.05) between every age gap wider than 2 years. For example, hours significantly increased from age 10–14 years and 14–18 years but not 10 to 12 or 14–16 years. There was also a significant main effect of activity type on hours per year engaged in cricket-specific activities (F_{2, 44} = 15.868, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.419) where players engaged in significantly less play, compared to both practice and matches (p < 0.05). There was also a significant age by activity type interaction, reflecting the changes in engagement in activities over development (F_{8, 176} = 17.619, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.445). The nature of the interaction can be observed in Figure 6 where match and practice activities show a linear increase over the development span, but play-based activities show a small decrease and consistently low levels.

Figure 6. The average hours per year across ages in each of three cricket specific activities (match, practice, play).

There is no main effect of age on overall percentage report as participants always reported an overall of 100% of their time. There was also no significant main effect of activity type (F_{1, 13} = 0.031, p = 0.862, ηp² = 0.002) where between the ages of 8 and 18 players spent 48.9% of their time playing men’s cricket and 51.1% of their time playing women’s cricket. There was, however, a significant age-by-activity type interaction, reflecting the changes in engagement in men’s and women’s activities over development (F_{5, 65} = 18.048, p < 0.001, ηp² = 0.581). The nature of the interaction can be observed in Figure 7. Post-hoc analysis showed that by 18 years old players are playing significantly less men’s cricket compared to ages 8, 10, and 12 (p <, 0.05).

Figure 7. The estimated percentage of time spent playing men’s and women’s cricket across ages.

Other sports and activities

The participants had played an average of four other sports across a variety of options (Figure 8). Players started other sports at an average age of 9.817 years old (slightly older than cricket starting age) and stopped the additional sports at an average age of 13.909 years old. 44 of the players in the sample were still playing other sports while being engaged in a professional cricket academy. Players engaged in each sport for an average of 4.5 h a week for 7 months a year. 44 players also engaged in other activities (all music) for significant time.

Figure 8. The number of players engaging with specific sports during their cricket development.

Discussion

This study aimed to take a first step in developing the evidence base to understand the participation histories of female cricketers in English professional academies. Overall, the findings suggest that there is potential influence of relative age effects for those selected into professional academies, particularly in batters, but players are geographically representative of the general population. There appears to be some influence of schooling and family on entry to the sport, where players engage in cricket informally before any kind of coach-led training, have siblings interested in sport and cricket (particularly brothers), are more likely to attend independent schools, and are often playing boys cricket before engaging in the girl’s or women’s game. Developmental activities are characterised by early engagement, high levels of diversification, and very low levels of play compared to high levels of formal practice and match play. These findings have implications for the advancement of talent identification and development policies and processes in women’s cricket.

The presence of a relative age effect contrasts previous suggestions that this phenomenon may be less present in the women’s sport (Abel et al., 2011; Andrew et al., 2022) but does support data in men’s cricket (Kelly, Brown, et al., 2022). The effect in this sample is mainly driven by the distribution of batters, who show a strong bias towards the first two-quarters of birth months. This position specificity also reflects the different developmental trajectories of batters and bowlers in the men’s game (Brown et al., 2021) and could be driven by an increasing focus on power hitting in women’s cricket (McErlain-Naylor et al., 2021). While regional academy women’s cricket does not have any age groupings, players are generally selected from the county age group game. There may be a need to enhance education and procedures to negate birth date biases at these lower levels.

Players started playing cricket informally at around 7 years old, and 2 years before they attended formal training. This suggests family or cultural influence on engaging young girls in the sport. Indeed, there is a large proportion of players with siblings interested in cricket and particularly older brothers. It is not clear from our data whether continued engagement after initial exposure is then driven by schooling or other factors, but the over representation of independent schooling displayed in this sample is also reflective of men’s cricket as well (Brown et al., 2021). Participants' early engagement and subsequent developmental activities did not, however, lead to early specialisation.

Players were participating in an average of four other sports up to the age of around 13 years old where they then began to specialise further. Many continue to participate in other sports and activities while they are playing academy cricket. This deviates slightly from the proposal of the Côté’s Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP; Côté & Vierimaa, 2014) that suggests specialisation is required in the mid-teenage years to aim for high performance. Much of the DMSP was built on evidence from men’s sport and may not represent the nuances of the women’s game. In this case, for example, the severe lack of “deliberate play” that players engage in across their developmental journeys. Like previous evidence from football, developmental activities here are characterised by high volumes of coach-led practice and match play. There are several potential explanations for this distribution of activities. Shorter formats are often implemented at grass roots level, but once senior men’s, county age group, or regional academies cricket match play is highly time-consuming with matches often taking 6 to 8 hours. This will naturally display a high proportion of time spent, even if lots of this is waiting to bat and not being actively engaged in play. Player’s anecdotally report high numbers of different cricket engagements, including club, school, county, and regional teams, as well as having personal coaches. This means formalised training is always readily available to some players. Finally, however, it is worth noting the sociocultural constraints experienced by female athletes when it comes to deliberate play. Girls are less likely to be invited to engage in informal play than boys and therefore are often reliant on specifically organised sessions to be able to engage with the sport (Coletti et al., 2022; deJonge et al., 2023). However, this argument could be undermined by the high number of siblings who play cricket, suggesting that informal “garden” or “back yard” cricket, a cultural stalwart in some cricketing nations, may be readily available. This availability of informal opportunities to play warrants further investigation.

A novel aspect of this study was to address the issue of whether engagement in the sport infers engagement in women’s sport. Previous research in football has not sought to differentiate whether participants were engaging in gender-specific training and match play or were playing in men’s sport as a female athlete. Our data suggest that most players do in fact engage with men’s sport before they play in a women’s game, and in earlier stages of development spend much more time playing with men and boys than girls and women. This balance gradually reverses over the development span. There has been some evidence to suggest that engagement with men’s cricket can offer enhanced levels of challenge and therefore facilitate skill acquisition (Lascu et al., 2021) and in England and Wales local leagues can allow girls to play in lower age group boys cricket to provide different levels of challenge. While this may have been successful for the players in this sample who have survived the system, it should not be an argument to justify the lack of provision of girls only teams. Engagement in boys’ cricket is likely to occur because of a lack of competition with other girls. The only other option would be to play senior women’s cricket from a very early age, where players may end up more as participants that actively developing their own games. Girls having to play in boy’s teams and training sessions can decrease the likelihood of engagement in sport in the first place and increase drop out of those who do engage. This means that while we may be offering more challenge to certain girls through playing with boys, there may be a huge number of potential players not engaged with the sport at all, leading to a reduction in the depth of the talent pool, a key issue in the women’s game. This could create a viscous cycle where girls drop out because of lack of opportunity to play girls cricket, and this means many clubs have too few players to provide girls only practices or matches. These issues can be addressed by increasing the level of support given to the girl’s game, not just at higher levels, but clubs and schools.

The findings of this study have implications for both theory and practice. The overall picture of early engagement in cricket but a long period of diverse engagement in different sports, supports data that has been presented in both men’s and women’s football (Ford et al., 2020; Sweeney et al., 2021). The data reflects the “early engagement hypothesis”, suggesting that there are benefits for performance when players engage in the sport early but do not necessarily specialise at this point in time. This pathway does not necessarily fit the diversification or specialisation pathways as they are presented in the DMSP. Similarly, our results suggest that women’s cricketers generally do not fit into either core pathway of the DMSP as they engage early, but do not specialise, and generally engage in little to no deliberate play. There may be gender, position, and sport-specific differences in developmental pathways of players and there is a need to avoid an over generalisation with current models as the evidence base in women’s sport begins to expand.

In cricket specifically, there is a need to monitor the relative age effect emerging in the batters in the women’s game and consider the education of coaches and scouts at the lower levels that feed the sample we have studied here. We have also presented the first data on the time that successful players reach certain milestones, which could be applied to talent identification processes. For the policy makers and coaching providers, there is a need to consider the availability of women’s cricket at younger ages and the balance between offering challenge and increasing the talent pool. In the UK initiatives such as “All-Stars” and “Dynamos” cricket has been implemented to offer fully mixed cricket at young age groups. Players in this sample would have been too old to have benefited from these. Women’s sport is a rapidly growing and developing domain and there is a need to consider these findings considering the time point at which they were collected and with the inherent weaknesses of retrospective recall of currently selected players. We do not know how these profiles compare to player’s not selected or those who are currently going through a more well-resourced system that is available now. Future work should continue to monitor these issues, with a particular focus on understanding the nuances of women’s talent development that can support pathways for high-level player’s but also for the largest possible engagement of girls and women in physical activity.

In summary, we have presented the first data on the developmental pathways of female cricketers who are playing in professional academies. The group were characterised by early engagement alongside high levels of diversification and high levels of practice and match play activities. There are potential birth date-related biases to selection. Importantly, we are the first to consider whether activities being engaged in are in the women’s game or girls playing in male focused settings. Data has revealed that the player’s are likely to engage in boys sport before female-specific training or matches and large proportions of early development are spent in these settings. The findings offer insight for governing bodies and clubs on how to support developmental pathways and the development of the game for women and girls. There is a need to develop further understanding of the impact of girls engaging with boys’ cricket from an early age and how this interacts with performance and participation pathways. Policy makers must appreciate the nuanced differences in supporting promising players in the women’s game, who are likely to be spending considerable time engaged in other sports and activities.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Remi Pindoria for her work on creating the online survey and data processing. Thank you to all the regional talent managers and players who supported the data collection process.

Disclosure statement

OR conducts paid consultancy work for the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2024.2351290

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the King’s College London [King’s Together Grant].