Cricket Australia, you should be ashamed

How can Cricket Australia laud itself for being “gender neutral” when they make female players sign a “not pregnant” clause? What era is this again?

How are we still having this conversation? (Pic: Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Had to double check the calendar this morning and not because velour tracksuits are making a comeback.

Seriously, it’s 2016 and some of our best female athletes are being forced to vouch they are not pregnant when they sign a contract.

I covered similar territory when in 2001 I broke the yarn that Netball Australia, through paranoia of a legal suit, banned pregnant women from playing at all levels.

Now 15 years on our elite female cricketers are being forced to fess up or rather warrant they are not, to the best of their knowledge, pregnant when they sign a contract to play for Australia.

How are we still having this conversation?

And what employer has the right to demand this of any employee?

To force players to sign such a clause is contrary to acceptable employer behaviour in any other Australian workplace.

Credit to Cricket Australia for the development of the women’s game and doubling women’s pay last year, but how can the same organisation laud itself for being “gender neutral” when such a clause exists?

To be clear, this is not just a gender argument but rather an argument for basic conditions of fair employment. Fair employment — which in professional sport also includes giving a coach the tools to be successful in their job.

The “not pregnant” clause is not a gender argument. It’s an argument for basic conditions of fair employment. (Pic: Matt King/Getty Images)

Currently there is no provision in the women’s game to replace a player who is long-term injured — or who falls pregnant. This means should a national league player fall pregnant, they cannot be replaced... presumably for financial reasons.

And this has happened at the elite level.

How is this fair on the coach?

What workplace doesn’t allow the boss to put a pregnant female staff member on maternity leave and replace them?

It’s not rocket science — let them play and let them be replaced.

Yes, there are some female athletes who have taken the mickey and signed contracts knowing they are pregnant only to pull out mid season. This has outraged teammates and coaches but let’s call these women what they are — welfare cheats. They were only ever after the dollars.

And then there’s the argument of safety.

If you take to the field you’re fit to play and all bets are off. I have played with, and against, pregnant athletes in hockey and netball. Those who I played with never expected charity and those I played against never gave any.

Did anyone notice Firebirds captain Laura Geitz giving anything other than 100 per cent in Queensland’s double extra-time, trans-Tasman netball Grand Final win in July?

Oh, that’s right, she was nine weeks pregnant.

Oh, and Netball Australia has since scrapped its ban on pregnant players.

Cricket Australia’s insistence on such an archaic clause also excludes its female players from parental leave. But Cricket Australia’s female staff lodging the players’ contracts are entitled to paid parental leave... the hypocrisy.

Let’s not forget David Warner left the One Day Series squad in January to return home to be with wife Candice ahead of the birth of their second baby — it was the start of his paternity leave. Cricket Australia wished “David and Candice” well.

If only the same organisation would wish its female cricketers equally well.

Or more to the point, offer the same employment conditions on their contracts. Simply put, it’s a miscarriage of justice.