Cricketer Ellyse Perry: ‘It’s time for women’s sport to develop further’
She is one of Australia’s best-known female sport stars, having played both football and cricket professionally. Here, cricket superstar Ellyse Perry talks about why comparing men’s and women’s sport so often misses the mark.
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The age of professionalism is rapidly transforming women’s sport across Australia.
No longer is it about pretty picture opportunities and demeaning pats on the back — these are real, tough sports stars working their guts out to compete with the best in the world.
Award-winning Sunday Telegraph sports photographer Phil Hillyard spent 2018 capturing five women as they went through the grind of training in their quest to be the best.
Here in her own words, cricket superstar Ellyse Perry talks about why comparing men’s and women’s sport so often misses the mark.
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There is an understandable tendency to look at female athletes through the lens of a male comparison, for example the ‘female Lionel Messi’, the ‘female Dan Carter’ or the ‘female Virat Kohli’.
I’d love it if, when watching women’s sport, that we didn’t even try to compare it to the male version.
You are watching female athletes who are the best in the world at what they do — so watch it for the competition going on, for the qualities of the athletes and teams you are watching, for the nuances of the game that make it unique.
People have been watching a professional men’s sport for 25 to 30 years. They are all great products, incredibly entertaining, and people are always going to be fans. After all, it is traditionally how we have consumed sport for entertainment.
But now women’s games provide a whole new avenue of consuming sport that is quite different and possibly even a bit refreshing.
Almost all the research, from a sport science point of view, from a medical point of view, just about anything high performance and sports-related, has been done on male teams.
There is now a huge opportunity for experts to look at female high performance.
We can start developing tailor made programs for elite female athletes, rather than transplanting what the male environments are doing. Although with the greatest of intentions, coaches may not be as educated on the female athlete and the physical and social demands for women. These new challenges are a result of progress in the area and further research and application can help deliver a more holistic program resulting in better entertainment for viewers.
There’s so much room for innovation, which is incredibly exciting for a sports nerd like me. In some respects this is a bit of an evolution, and I know that kind of evolution won’t happen overnight, nothing of substance ever does. But applying this kind of thinking elsewhere will help the game too.
Media coverage can play a big part in taking things to another level.
At the moment I feel like it can digress in to lighter stories and reviews of matches that don’t necessarily call out under-par performances or hold athletes to account.
In-depth and critical analysis is important for fans who are invested in the game. That needs to exist in women’s cricket and women’s sport in general now too.
There’s so much room for change.
The Australian public feels a great deal of ownership of Australia’s men’s team. I think it would be amazing if there was that same level of emotional investment and care for the women’s team.
If much of this has happened in five years’ time, women’s cricket could be in a position to generate its own broadcast deals and ticket sales and as a result, a profit for Cricket Australia. I’m certainly not suggesting this is the be all and end all of what we are trying to achieve, but in a lot of ways, reaching this position is the ultimate success.
Who knows, maybe it will take 10 years — Rome wasn’t built in a day — but we are well and truly on our way.
Originally published as Cricketer Ellyse Perry: ‘It’s time for women’s sport to develop further’
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