Unpacking Frailty and Gendered Rules of Sport: Women Cricketers’ Experiences of Practice and Play in Rajasthan,India

Abstract

Sport has historically furthered the myth of female frailty by making it the basis for women’s exclusion from early participation, and hitherto, for inclusion on restricted conditions. The article focuses on the gendered rules of play in cricket which manifest materially by altering an object, the space and temporality of play translating into the use of a smaller ball within a shorter boundary and lesser hours of playtime for women in comparison to men. While the historical and existing justifications for each of the differences in rules revolve around varied meanings of what ‘being frail’ entails for women, the supposed easing of conditions is also expected to encourage and enable women to emulate men’s style of play, and hence, make their game ‘exciting’. Drawing from fieldwork and interviews of women cricketers who represent the state of Rajasthan (India) in the Board of Control for Cricket in India domestic tournaments, the article unpacks the on-ground manifestation of the three gendered rules to argue that the altered nature of play makes the women’s version more challenging and hence, distinct and separate from the men’s version and its valuations. Foregrounding women’s layered experiences, the article shows the way women play sport cannot be captured within the imposed binary logic of frail and non-frail.

Introduction

The article unpacks the institutionalised rules of play that structure entry and participation of women in sport; and in doing so it also interrogates the legacy of the frailty myth as it operates through the rules. Rather than being a set of universal principles outlining how a sport is to be played, rules function as limits or ‘boundaries of permissible behaviour’ (Cashmore, 2010, p. 258), outlining the norms of how women should play a sport. The ideological underpinnings of the normative are located in the systematic development of the ‘myth of female frailty’ as an objective concept regarding the nature of women in 19th century Western Europe and North America (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 44). The frailty myth based on ‘women’s unique anatomy and physiology and their special moral obligations’ (Lenskyj, 1986, p. 18) served as an ideological barrier to early participation of women in sport. In contemporary times, although women have made inroads into sports, their play continues to be restricted by rules that assign legal denotations to frailty.

The particular focus of this article is on how women cricketers in the state of Rajasthan in India negotiate the global and official gendered rules of play instituted in The Laws of Cricket Code (The Laws) and the International Cricket Council (ICC) ‘Playing Conditions’. Mirroring popular euphoria, cricket has been a ‘favourite subject’ in sport studies in India (Gopal & Prakash, 2021, p. 2). Within the temporal frame of the colonial period, sport historians have explored the thematic of the social relations of race, caste, religion, masculinity, and nationalism in and through cricket (Cashman, 1980; Guha, 2014; Kidambi, 2019; Majumdar, 2006, 2007). The sport has been seen as a ‘hard cultural form’ to understand the dynamics of decolonisation (Appadurai, 1996), and also as a ‘deviant political psychology of popular culture’ (Nandy, 2000). Epitomised in the medium of the Indian Premier League, the new consumers of cricket find themselves in the ‘sporting-entertainment complex’ today (Subramanian, 2021). Women in India too have been studied as occupying the role of cricket-watchers (Naha, 2012); and recently, as players negotiating an ‘outsider status’ in a context where the men’s game is the ‘established’ form (Gupta, 2021, p. 89). In the Indian academic context where cricket is the most studied sport, this article seeks to directly address two significant gaps in the study of cricket and sport at large. First, the unaddressed domain of gendered rules and its effect on women’s participation. Second, a relative absence of field-based methodological approaches to interpret and understand sport.

The first section of the article discusses the framing of sportswomen as frail and feminine by taking examples from sports of different genres. The second section titled ‘how should women play cricket?’ outlines three gendered rules in cricket which manifest materially in the use of a smaller ball (object) within a shorter boundary (space) and lesser hours of playtime (temporality) for women. It is not surprising that the supposed official rationale behind the differences in rules come from an a priori assumption that women are frail, and a consequent representation of the women’s game as an ‘easier’ version of the men’s game. But the third section brings out that how women actually play cricket contradicts the official rationale. Through the experiences of practice and play of cricketers who represent Rajasthan state’s Under-19 and Senior Women’s teams in India, this section shows that the women’s version is a game in its own right that is distinct and separate from the men’s version and its valuations. By unpacking the on-ground manifestation of three gendered rules, the article argues that the frailty myth does not suffice to explain even the observable inabilities of some women. Women’s experiences show that such imbalances are ‘produced by material [and social] circumstances rather than by “nature”’ (Chaudhuri, 2012). In that sense, the binary logic of frail and non-frail that operates in the global and official rules of play are not valid. Women’s experiences of sport are far more layered than can be captured by the binary.

The Frailty Myth in Sport

Sports for women were tamed down in late 19th century Western Europe and North America as a result of the hysterical fears of the medical establishment regarding the growth of athleticism among girls and women (Dworkin & Messner, 2002, p. 25). To counter their desire to play sport, an objective discourse was disseminated about the physical and psychological dangers of athleticism as leading to ‘constitutional overstrain’ and a wastage of the limited and fixed vital energy that women were to preserve and expend on their reproductive capacities (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 59; Lenskyj, 1986, p. 19). Early participation of women in sport was exclusive to the socio-economically privileged; those, as Bourdieu (1978, p. 834) would say had ‘spare time’. As competition rose in the medical profession; the myth of female frailty played into the financial interests of male doctors who were frantic to ensure a ‘reliable patient pool’ of wealthy women as a ‘client caste’ to be exploited (Wolf, 2002, p. 233). The male medical establishment used its ‘professional authority to repress the desires [of women] under the garb of medicine by exaggerating, prolonging, and even encouraging their ailments, real or imaginary’ (Vertinsky, 1984, p. 112).

One response to the denial of athleticism was the ‘girl’s rules’ movement which ‘diluted’ men’s rules (Lenskyj, 2003, p. 75), as early participants sought to ‘reconcile the apparent contradiction between games and womanhood’ (McCrone, 1984, p. 131). Modifications such as smaller playing spaces, reduced time limits, increase in number of players in a team sport, among others were institutionalised to align with their predetermined social roles. While these changes in play were crucial for questions of access to sporting spaces and its practice, they served as a priori curtailments on the fuller realisation of athletic capabilities of women and ended up (re)entrenching their alleged inferiorities, and the binary of frail and non-frail. Bearing in mind the social location of women who desired to play sport, it is not surprising that the physical exertion of working class and ethnic/racial minority women (Lenskyj, 2003, p. 75)—in domains other than sports—were neither considered a challenge to the alleged naturalised inabilities of all women, nor a threat to what ‘being female’ entailed.

Today, although women have made inroads into the masculine domain of organised sport, yet instituted entry regulations and rules of play for women to participate as women continue to structure and impede access. Eligibility to compete in the female athlete category is guarded by entry regulations intended to exclude women with variation in their sexual development (Pape, 2021, p. 115). While, on one hand, inclusion threatens the essentialist binary sex-gender model on which sport stands (Mitra, 2019, p. 385); a historical and global perspective on the matter brings out the geopolitical dynamics of gender eligibility regulations that has shifted from an East/West ideological antagonism to a Global North/Global South racialised sex difference (Bodoun, 2015, cited in Pape, 2021, p. 125). Sporting bodies and some sportswomen have resisted the inclusion of intersex athletes on the pretext of ‘fair and equal play’ (Gandert et al., p. 2013), substantiating it with claims that intersex athletes and athletes with hyperandrogenism have ‘male-like’ athletic abilities (Pape, 2021, p. 122) that makes them stronger and faster than ‘real women’ (Cooky et al., 2018, pp. 269–270). The medical sciences have ascribed legal denotation to what counts as being women (gender) or being female (sex). Here, constitutive difference is invoked not just between men and women, but between ‘real’ and ‘other’ women. The latter segregation in-itself challenges the essentialist binary sex-gender model of sport, as it also contests the homogeneity imposed upon the category of women.

However, securing entry into the playing field is not enough. In the field of play, gendered rules structure their participation which operate through procedure- based restrictions and/or processual gendered expectations from women. Procedural conditions establish how a game that unfolds in the form of a match between two teams is to be played, and are arbitered on-field by umpires or referees. Violating these amounts to some form of penalty for the violator and her team. Processual rules outline the terms and expectations of participation which govern display and performance-based sports. In this case, a jury’s verdict rather than a match is the mode of deciding the winner, and there is no scope for violation as expected performance is written into the rules.

For instance, in case of the team sport of ice hockey, body checking or forceful collisions—a prominent feature of the men’s game—is procedurally prohibited in the women’s game (Theberge, 2000, p. 138). The fear that body contact will lead to unacceptable forms of on-ice aggression which might have repercussions off it, denies women the opportunity to experience the physicality of the sport (Theberge, 2002, p. 294). This denial is implicitly linked to the gendering of the likelihood of getting injured, which reduces women’s experiences of their bodies to a ‘fragile encumbrance, rather than the media for the enactment of [their] aims’ (Young, 1980, p. 144).

But a ban on body checking has altered the nature of play itself, leading to the enhancement of genuine playing skills such as speed, strategy and technique in women’s ice hockey (Theberge, 1997, pp. 73–74). The absence of forceful collisions has also brought out the falsity in men’s play in which a display of ‘bravado’ and aggression (Young, 1980, p. 143), and playing with injury are synonymised to sporting abilities.

In sports based on display and performance, a gendered appraisal of playing skills themselves has been instituted as criterion for judging and translate to processual conditions. For instance, the International Federation for Body Building and Fitness (IFBB) rules for the Women’s Physique category prescribes:

A detailed assessment of the various muscle groups should be made during the comparisons, at which time the judge has to compare muscle shape, density, and definition while still bearing in mind the competitor’s overall balanced development and femininity. (IFBB, 2021a, p. 8)

In the category that permits the highest percentage of muscularity in women, whether the jury is meant to assess the physique of a body builder or the extent to which the body builder’s physique abides by norms of ‘the female aesthetic body’ (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 275) is not difficult to decipher. In comparison to the ‘athlete’s ability to present herself with confidence, poise and grace’ (IFBB, 2021a, p. 8), in men’s bodybuilding the judges are to focus on ‘superior physique from the standpoint of muscular bulk, balanced development, muscular density and definition’ (IFBB, 2021b, p. 9).

Frailty and aesthetic femininity come into a singular frame in figure skating for which the International Skating Union rules that the man ‘must lift, hold, and throw the ‘lady’’ (Leong, 2018, p. 1262). Women’s participation is epitomised as artists instead of athletes, and they are rewarded for being flexible, graceful, emotive and weightless (Angyal & Eison, 2010; Voelker & Reel, 2018). Male skaters, on the other hand, are expected to land enormous jumps, rotate more, demonstrating their strength and power. The gendered structure of play as well as performance unleashes a comparative valuation of skills wherein power, aggression, muscularity, and playing with injury are eulogised.

While gendered rules manifest differently depending upon the genre of the sport, they unify in the discursive and mythical ‘framing of the female athlete’ (Messner, 1988, p. 198) as frail one way or the other. The game of cricket brings a distinctive perspective into the categorising discourse of frailty in sport. Cricket is a long duration, non-body contact team sport in which variable degrees of physical and mental effort have to be expended by players—individually and collectively as a team—at different intervals.

In cricket, gendered rules unfold not through procedural restrictions or processual expectations, but tangible and intangible conditions of play that translate into the use of a smaller/lighter ball, a shorter boundary, and lesser hours of playtime in comparison to the men’s game. Time-based restrictions exist in indoor and outdoor racket sports as well where in the total number of sets for women are reduced. Even as the restricted conditions dictate the normative of how women should play cricket, there are no prohibitions or rewards for playing or not playing in ways expected of their gender. Gendered conditions are, infact, justified on the pretext of easing the effort required for women to play the game like men. The following sections tease out the implications of such encouragement and how women actually play the game.

How Should Women Play Cricket?

At the outset, it is useful to make a distinction between two sets of rules that govern the game of cricket: one, The Laws of Cricket and two, the ICC Playing Conditions.

The MCC Laws of Cricket provide the framework around which all cricket matches are based. Individual leagues and governing bodies [ICC] then add their own playing regulations on top, amending the Laws to suit the differing needs of, for example, matches in junior cricket, T[wenty]20 matches and Test matches. In almost all cases, the fundamentals of the game, such as scoring runs and taking wickets, remain unchanged in such regulations [emphasis mine]. (MCC, 2019, p. 2)

The Marylebone Cricket Club (popularly known as The Lords) in England, founded in late 18th century, is the arbiter and custodian of The Laws; whereas the Playing Conditions are instituted by the ICC, the global governing body of men’s and women’s cricket, on the basis of different formats of the game, and differentiations based on gender and age. ICC’s member nations have to follow its Playing Conditions in their domestic tournaments. The women’s game came under the gamut of the ICC in 2005, prior to which it was governed by the International Women’s Cricket Council (IWCC) since 1958 (Velija, 2015, p. 5). Following this, the ICC mandated an integration of the governing bodies for women’s and men’s cricket in its member nations. This led the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)—affiliated to the ICC—to take over from the Women’s Cricket Association of India which had been a member of the IWCC since 1973 (Pradhan, 2017). Since 2005, the domestic women’s cricket season in India has been played in line with the The Laws and the ICC Playing Conditions.

The excerpt cited at the outset of this section is from the preface of The Laws of Cricket Code. In it, reference to gendered differences along with age-based and format-based differences in fundamentals and conditions is conspicuous in its absence. This is particularly surprising because The Laws itself institutionalise a difference for a smaller and lighter ball to be used for women’s cricket. The weight of the ball is noted in Law 4.1 to be between 5.5 and 5.75 ounces (MCC, 2019, p. 10). Its exclusive application to the men’s game ‘only’ is noted much later in Law 4.6 where the specifications for smaller and lighter balls for women’s and junior cricket (boys under 13 years of age) is made.

The usage of the 5-ounces ball was dominant in England’s domestic circuit and was already part of the England Women’s Cricket Association’s (EWCA) rules of play (Velija, 2015, p. 92). When the IWCC was formed in 1958, the members of the EWCA pushed for the usage of a ‘slightly smaller’ ball as it was thought to suit women’s smaller hands (ibid.). The EWCA ‘embodied a decidedly middle-class conception of cricket from the south and midlands of England and one not always shared by women’s cricket organisations in the north of England with strong working-class origins’ (Ryan, 2016, p. 2128). The usage of a smaller and lighter ball that emerged out of a specific socio-spatial context which did not represent the interests of all women cricketers in England itself, was mapped onto member nations of IWCC in distant geographies.

The differential between the upper limit for the women’s game and the lower limit of the men’s game is just 0.19 ounce or 4.9 g. Yet, it has been considered necessary to be instituted by EWCA, followed by the IWCC, and MCC. While the 0.19-ounce difference is problematic in itself, the coexistence of this difference with the similarity of the dimensions for women’s and junior cricket shows how the official rules further the legacy of the frailty myth by going a step further—infantilising all women. Law 4.6 states that for women’s cricket the ball should weigh between 4.94 ounces/140 g to 5.31 ounces/151 g, while for junior boys the weight range is 4.69 ounces/133 g to 5.06 ounces/144 g (MCC, 2019). On the ground, the usage of a standard 5-ounces ball equates the playing conditions for boys aged less than thirteen, and women of all age groups.

Along with the MCC’s institution of a different law for the ball, official alterations in the duration of play and size of the boundaries have been instituted by the ICC. In each case the specific measurements are not as important as their relativity and the implications on the nature of play. First, for women’s cricket, the duration of play for an innings in the One Day format is lesser by 20 minutes (3 hours 10 minutes) and in the twenty twenty format by ten minutes (1 hour 15 minutes) than the men’s game (ICC, 2019a, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, Clause 12.7). ¹ However, the number of overs in the two formats is the same for both the categories which implies that women have to undertake the same activity—bowling, batting and fielding—in lesser time and so, faster. The time constraints are enmeshed in the gendered spatiality of the restricted boundary. Less time, hence, corresponds with a smaller playing area, which is the second difference in ICC Playing Conditions.

With respect to the size of the boundary, there are different ranges allotted for the men’s and women’s categories. For the men’s game in all formats the boundary is to measure between sixty-five to ninety yards from the centre of the pitch ² ; for the women’s game, in the twenty-twenty format it is to measure between fifty-five to seventy yards, whereas for the One Day format the lower limit is extended to sixty yards (ICC, 2019a, 2020a, 2020b, 2020c, Clause 19.1.3). There are two additional conditions for boundaries. One, in the men’s game: ‘The aim shall be to maximise the size of the playing area at each venue’ (ICC, 2019a, 2020a, Clause 19.1.3); two, for the twenty-twenty format of the women’s game: ‘Any venue that cannot meet the minimum boundary size of 55 yards can apply to the ICC to be considered for an exemption’ (ICC, 2020c, Clause 19.1.3). The rules mandate that the distance to the boundary in the men’s game must be maximised wherever possible, but at the same time if a venue fails to meet even the minimum distance mark for women, it is not a matter of concern. The difference in lengths show that the space women can cover/occupy by movement at play is restricted to almost half of the playing field allocated to men. The circumscribed boundary serves as a visual representation of an ‘enclosed space [that] severs a continuity between a ‘here’ and a “yonder”’, as it also becomes a metaphor for rooting women in place and inhibiting their intentionality (Young, 1980, pp. 150–151).

However, the gendered spatiality of play alters the nature of the game by enforcing big hits—fours and sixes—as it also makes the women’s game an ‘exciting product’ in popular understanding (Hess, 2018). Bigger hits, higher run rate and scores are considered milestones in the successful emulation of men’s style of play, and reinforce the preference of masculine skills like the display of power, over genuine skills of play.

At first instance, this rationale appears to be starkly different from procedural and processual gendered rules in ice hockey or body building and figure skating. Women in these sports are formally denied the opportunity to explore their physicality, and would face sanctions if they played or performed like men; but women cricketers are encouraged (enforced) to play like men and make glorified elements of the men’s game a part of theirs. However, this encouragement to emulate them comes with the latent assumption that women cricketers cannot match up without their playing conditions being eased. One consequence of this is that even if and when women hit big shots, the skills required to do so are denigrated as undemanding because their achievements are within allegedly easy playing conditions. There is, then, an intrinsic link between rules that are portrayed as ‘encouragement’ even as they emphasise the ‘frailty’ of women. This way the gendered rules also deny women cricketers the scope to challenge the comparative categorisation of skills as masculine or feminine, and the game as difficult and easy, respectively. Yet, the next section will show how the altered nature of play makes the women’s game more challenging than men’s game.

Whether it is the ban on aggressive body contact, the emphasis on female body aesthetic as a sporting skill, or the easing of playing conditions for women to be able to play like men, the difference from the men’s game and the encouragement to emulate them further the entrenchment of women in sport and women’s sports as ‘…imperfect copies … not defined in and of themselves, in other words, as a different subjectivity … defined in terms of an ideal subjectivity and as a function of their inadequacies with respect to that ideal’ (Irigaray & Guynn, 1995, p. 7).

How Do Women Play Cricket?

The previous section brought out the binary logic of frail and non-frail as it operates in the global and official rules of play. This section unpacks what the alteration in an object, the space and temporality of play reveals about women’s sport and women in sport in India through the game of cricket. Some stakeholders carry forward the frailty myth as rationales for the gendered conditions. However, the complexities of the on-ground socio-material manifestations of the three gendered rules show that women cricketers’ experiences of play and practice are far more layered to fit the binary logic neatly.

This section is based on 4 months of field research undertaken between September and December 2018 as part of the author’s MPhil dissertation. ³ The field research followed the selection processes for the Under-19 and Senior Women’s teams of the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) affiliated to the BCCI. The two teams participated in the BCCI 2019–2020 domestic One Day and Twenty20 tournaments. The process comprised two distinct linear stages of elimination that materialised as open trials in which around 130 players participated ⁴ ; selection matches between forty-five shortlisted players divided into three teams; and finally, the sixteen-membered teams’ training camps held at Sawai Man Singh stadium, Jaipur city in the state of Rajasthan. In-depth interviews of twenty women cricketers, four women selectors for the season, six male groundskeepers, five selection matches officials (a women scorer, and three male umpires and one video analyst), five former and current coaches of the state teams and of three training academies in Jaipur were taken. ⁵ Observations of play and practice were conducted at all stages of the selection process, and at two gender-integrated private cricket-training academies and one all-girls cricket club in Jaipur district. An ordinary fieldwork day unfolded with the morning practice session at six, on match days at eight; and ended with sundown after the evening practice, or at five pm on match days. Informal conversations and group discussions with different stake holders, and detailed fieldnotes have added a crucial layer of nuance often eclipsed in the audio-recorded formal interviews. Additionally, being a former professional cricketer made me a particular kind of insider. I was able to conduct observations as a participant in the bowling and fielding practice sessions. However, as every researcher exhibits ‘a multiplex subjectivity with many crosscutting identifications’ (Narayan, 1993, p. 676), my ‘position of intimate affinity’ (ibid., p. 671) did not extend beyond a shared understanding of the technical details and the emotionality associated with play and performances. I was not an insider to the everyday lived realities and actual struggles of many women cricketers who have been part of this study.

In what follows, women’s experiences of practice and play are charted through a fundamental differentiation between the spatio-temporalities of ‘before play’ and ‘actual play’, within which interesting discrepancies in women’s experiences exist. Before play signifies the off-season that unfolds in sporting spaces of practice such as training academies, clubs, educational institutes or homes wherein players are free from the tyranny of the rules—The Laws and ICC Playing Conditions. Actual play refers to the RCA selection process and the BCCI domestic season which are governed by The Laws and ICC Playing Conditions.

The Ball

Following Law 4.6, the 5-ounces ball is used in actual play—the selection process and domestic matches in India. The contract for the supply of 5-ounces balls to BCCI and state associations like RCA rests with the largest cricket equipment manufacturer and brand, Sanspareil Greenlands (SG) located in Meerut district in the state of Uttar Pradesh. A single SG 5-ounce leather ball handcrafted for state associations and BCCI is priced at approximately 3,600 rupees (₹). While 5.5-ounces match balls—standard weight for men’s play—are also priced around the same range, SG produces cheaper varieties of 5.5-ounces balls starting 500 rupees as well. Further, the 5.5-ounces balls are mass-produced by numerous cricket ball manufacturers in Meerut and Jalandhar district (in the state of Punjab), the two predominant production geographies for sports goods in India, and so they are easily available at sports goods retail shops. In contrast, cheaper varieties of the 5-ounces leather balls are not mass-produced and hence, scarcely available at retail outlets or at the manufactories for direct purchase. The market dynamics compel individual players and practice spaces such as gender-integrated or all-women academies, clubs, and educational institutes to purchase the 5.5-ounces balls for everyday practice in the off-season.

While the rule makers’ gendering of the ball seeks to alleviate the effects of women’s alleged frailness (smaller hands), the market’s non-production of the slightly smaller and lighter ball produces women as an outsider on the sports field and the field of sports. The high price of the scarcely produced 5-ounces balls and the unavailability of cheaper varieties adds another dimension of marginalisation, that of class and affordability, to the already gendered nature of play and access.

However, women cricketers themselves do not have a problem using the 5.5-ounces ball since they practise with it and are used to playing with it. Tamanna, ⁶ a senior all-rounder representing Rajasthan since 2010–2011, who practises at her district club makes individual purchases of cheaper Kimati (brand) 5.5-ounces balls for practice, and as the selection process nears, she switches to better quality higher priced SG 5.5-ounces balls. She is able to switch to better quality expensive balls to streamline her playing skills given her relatively privileged class position, yet it does not enable her to address the gendered non-production and unavailability of balls prescribed for women’s cricket.

Contrary to the frailty myth, players only informally spoke about how difficult it is for them to adjust to the 5-ounces ball which is suddenly thrust upon them in the open trials. Interestingly, rarely did players openly agree to the fact that they faced any difficulties for the fear of being tagged as ‘someone who makes excuses’ despite being asked to perform with a smaller ball. ‘We suddenly get the smaller ball during trials so it takes a while to get the fingers to grip on it’, lamented Soni who has played for Rajasthan’s Under-19 and Senior women’s teams since 2011. Archita, a 15-year-old debutant bowler, and Kasturi, a specialist fielder, demonstrated the difficulty in gripping a smaller ball to bowl as it has a more prominent seam, also explaining that fielding/catching it stung their hands as it carried faster off the bat, they said.

The annual selection process for team formation is a transitional spatio- temporality that marks the most crucial period in a player’s career in their journey from before play to actual play. During the selections when players have to play their best, the ability to instantaneously adjust to a smaller ball becomes a factor that determines their performance over and above the daily efforts they have undertaken to better oneself—albeit, with an unsuitable ball—in the period before play.

During the two teams training camps, the coaches had to deal with a regular complaint of the disappearance of cricket balls from the teams’ kit bags. Since camps fall under the purview of the RCA, the provision for 5-ounces SG balls is made by the association. It was later found out that the frequent disappearance of balls from the teams’ assigned quota were a result of the players’ attempt to creatively preserve access to the 5-ounces balls for everyday practice in the off-season. Bowlers, in particular, would try their best to hide a ball or two in their personal kit bags.

Despite the challenges women cricketers face in adjusting to the 5-ounce ball, male coaches, umpires or groundkeepers rationalised the use of a smaller ball as easing the game for women because of the perceived smallness of their hands. A smaller ball can be gripped better and delivered successfully, they reiterated the official rationale. While it cannot be denied that the smaller ball fits better in one’s palm, that is the case for women and men alike. My own experiences of gender-integrated practice sessions from when I was a member of the Rajasthan team between 2007 and 2012 brings this element to light. Male bowlers would often borrow 5-ounces balls from women on the pretext of getting the feel of bowling with a smaller ball. After delivering a ball or two, their conclusion rarely did not revolve around how the 5-ounces ball required little effort to grip; the male spinners would add that it spun more after it bounced in comparison to the 5.5-ounces ball as the smaller size of the ball enabled them to deliver it with added pressure. A subsequent off-handed comment after using the smaller ball was that the women’s game was very easy. This routinised comment took on a whole new meaning in the course of the fieldwork. Along with being a denigration of women’s cricket as easy, their evaluation was based on the judgement of the men’s game as difficult. The comparative can be, thus, interpreted as resentment and envy on part of the male cricketers who found their institutionalised conditions of play too demanding, and perhaps unsuitable despite being perceived fit for it.

A certain minimum weight and size of the ball has a scientific rationale of its own and it is not being claimed that the lightness or smallness of the ball is directly proportionate to ease of play. But what is evident is that playing well, ease of play and suitability are more about what one is used to and has been practising with rather than the size of one’s hand, which in any case is not based on one’s biologically determined sex or culturally determined gender. The assumption that women and men are homogenous groups having small and large hands respectively is clearly problematic. However, only women cricketers have to individually make adjustments to the contradiction between the rule and its logic, on one hand, and the situation on the ground—in terms of access and availability of different kinds of balls at different times—on the other.

The Boundary

While the precise nature of justification for differences in rules may vary, ‘lacks’ on the part of women was found to be a common reference. In his interview, Sujay, a male coach who has been in-charge of the women’s and men’s state teams at different times, expressed his ‘genuine concern’ for women cricketers as he felt that they are unable to throw a fielded ball directly to the pitch—even within a shortened boundary—because of their weak shoulders. An example from the Under-19 selection matches shows that Sujay’s claim about women not being able to throw directly maybe empirically observable in individual instances. Ranu, a debutant U19 team probable, found herself placed at the boundary for fielding in one of the matches. Every time she fielded a ball driven towards her; she would try to garner force by jerking her elbow for a direct throw. Watching her field, the coach and physiotherapist noted that she did not know the correct throwing technique which involved mobilising one’s shoulder to generate force. By the end of the match, Ranu had a sore right elbow that needed immediate addressal for her to play again the next day. Her inability, however, did not arise from the supposed inherent lack of shoulder strength in women as purported by Sujoy, but from a lack of opportunities to learn the correct technique of play. Playing with incorrect technique has often turned as fodder for stereotypes about women’s weakness and poor performances. In this case, however, it had more important, non- gendered consequences such as an elbow injury.

A similar opinion as Sujoy’s but with regarding to batting was agreed upon by four groundskeepers employed with RCA. In an informal group discussion while watching a selection match, they concurred that women cricketers were not able to score as many boundaries—fours and sixes—as men; so, a shorter boundary was instituted to alleviate the effects of them lacking the power to do so. Only Ramji, a sexagenarian, differed from the collective opinion and reminded his fellow groundskeepers by naming the players who are known for hitting sixes that land metres beyond the maximum limit of the boundary prescribed for women’s cricket. The implication of his reminder was that even if the boundary is drawn as per the men’s rule, their shots would result in sixes. Ramji went a step further to dismiss the frailty myth by referring to the everyday physical activities undertaken by his farmer-wife at their pearl millet cultivation. ‘If they are frail, how is my wife toiling in the sun?’ He added with sarcasm, ‘the farm boundary is not smaller for her because she is a woman’.

The players named by Ramji were among those who had individually worked on building their physical strength, and learnt the technique to hit lofted shots. However, Meenu a senior state team member who has played for the Central Zone team as well, explained that just strength was not enough. ‘It is the timing of the shot that matters the most’, she said. In this sense, women cricketers take advantage of a shorter boundary to score more runs for their team in a manner similar to how male batters with the same skillset playing in a venue with a shorter boundary would.

But, it is comparatively difficult (though not impossible) to add to the team’s score by running between the wickets—another mode of scoring runs—within a shorter boundary. ⁷ This is due to the closer placement of fielders and not enough distance until the boundary to take runs without the increased risk of getting out. Interestingly, a challenge that emerges from the gendered spatiality of play leads women to focus on bettering the playing skills required to execute it. Running between the wickets require mastery of both individual and collective playing skills like coordination between on-field batting partners, the technique of tapping the ball, directing it to the gaps or towards poorer fielders, reading the fielders reflexes to strategise, and speed to steal runs safely. ‘If both batters are not fast runners, one will definitely get run out’, says 19-year-old Himanshi, an opening batter for the U19 and Senior teams. A successful execution of the activity given the challenges can itself be considered as ‘exciting’. However, performance valuations in sport are not gender-neutral.

While one does not know to what extent the desire to encourage women to play like men or make women’s cricket more exciting factored into the decision for a gendered spatiality of play, it is still important to think about its intended effect. The way women negotiate the added challenges of gendered rules, on one hand; and, the way they play with ease by rules prescribed for men (size of the ball, for instance), on the other, goes to show that the classification of their game as exciting emerges from a position of fear rather than a concern for equal opportunity in access and participation. For it is only when women transcend the limits imposed upon their physicality that their game is classified as a successful emulation of the men’s game, and hence, exciting. This dilutes the actual import of women’s successful sporting endeavours which may be similar or different than men’s, thereby pigeonholing their game as—what Theberge (1997) calls it in the case of ice hockey—an adapted and easier version of the men’s game.

The Duration of Play

Unlike the ball and the boundary, the temporality of play is not tangible; but it unscrupulously structures match experiences for women. The match is the most visible sporting site to non-players including spectators, and it also represents a culmination of all the experiences that players carry with them from the period before play. The intangibility of this rule could be one reason why women cricketers were generally found unaware of the fact that the duration of play for their game is different than men’s, let alone that it is shorter. Further, all-women matches happen to be the only event in which the existence and applicability of this rule can be learned; and the gross absence of such opportunities at lower levels feeds into not knowing about the time limitations.

Among the stakeholders, it is the umpires who are expected to have a rational perspective about this rule since they administer it on-field. On the contrary, over a series of conversations the three male umpires who officiated in the selection matches concurred that the duration of an innings is shorter for women because they do not strategise between overs. Strategising is a mental skill exercised on-field based on the subjective styles of play of different bowlers or batters, and the larger situation in the game, in order to alter the course of the match in one’s team’s favour. While mental indecisions/inactions on the part of debutants and junior players were empirically observable to someone watching the selection matches closely, it is untenable that their inactions cannot be remedied, or that strategising skills could not be acquired. In contradiction to the umpires’ claim, senior cricketers with more experience were found to be intensely involved in planning and strategising during the matches. This also points to a general tendency of male actors to selectively amplify acquired inabilities of a few women as a natural lack in all women. Such generalisations are problematic because they fail to account for the actual differences in playing abilities in terms of players’ fitness levels, skills and technique, experience and exposure of playing the game. However, even though not all players are expected to participate equally in on-field strategising, it is still imperative to locate the inabilities of some players—portrayed as the ordinary of the women’s game—to the experiences that make them acquire it.

Considering match experience is crucial for learning the tricks of the trade, a common concern raised by women cricketers was the lack of match practice in the off-season. The state association was generally apathetic to conduct women-only tournaments before the BCCI domestic season commences. A series of intra- district matches leading to inter-district tournaments would not only provide cricketers an opportunity to play matches, but also produce a substantive data of scores and performances which would help shortlist players for the state’s team.

Adding to the institutionalised lack, is the impossibility to informally organise women-only matches as there were not enough women cricketers in most districts to form even one team of eleven players. Only players from two private boarding schools in Jaipur and Ajmer districts had the exclusive privilege of forming an all-girls team for practice in the off season. For most players, however, the only experience of match play—if at all there was—is within gender-integrated teams and mixed matches in their training academies. In these, men’s playing conditions regarding the ball, the boundary and duration of play were adhered to. Additionally, women cricketers often found themselves playing with and against Under-14 boys, and if not, they were restricted to inconsequential roles like bowling to tailenders, batting as tailenders and being positioned to field at third or fine-leg—behind the wicketkeeper—where the ball is least likely to come. The role restrictions in their practice spaces confirmed the collective experience of what Etue and Williams (1996, cited in Theberge, 2000, p. 9) call the ‘little sister principle’—the way most males identified sports functions. Most women cricketers interviewed said that they were introduced to cricket by their elder brothers. ‘When they needed an extra player’, or ‘I was sent to fetch the ball when it went far away’, were commonly shared experiences that demonstrate that women had no say in the modality of their early participation in sport too.

The result of the continuous and active denial of access to roles, spaces and moments which have a ‘game-changing’ impact is what was evident in some women cricketers’ (in)actions during selection matches. What this explication goes to show is that varied notions of being frail are not just employed to regulate women’s inclusion and exclusion in informal and formal practice and play, but also used as a justification for the effect of the denial of substantive equality in participation. Hence, it is not difficult to gauge whether women are not allowed fuller participation in sport because they are perceived to be incapable, or the persistent denial of fuller participation produces certain inabilities which are portrayed as examples of natural and collective frailty of women.

Interestingly, in probing the umpire’s claim further, what comes to fore is a reverse causality. It can also be because women’s teams have lesser time than men to complete an innings, that they cannot liberally expend it on strategising between balls or overs.

‘The umpire constantly kept telling the captain to bowl the overs fast. We bowled eight overs in ten minutes, you know! I bowled four overs in three minutes. If there was more time then we girls could have bowled in a relaxed manner’, recollected Kiran, a debutant all-rounder for the U19 team. This was an incident from the fielding innings of the then recently concluded BCCI inter-state One Day tournament in Jabalpur. While Kiran’s statement is hyperbolic, its factuality is not a concern but the intended effect the rule has on play and how women negotiate it during a match is. Her experience of having to speed up completing her overs to finish within the stipulated time is another instance of the skill of instantaneous adjustability to a different playing condition that only women cricketers have to master because of the manifest discrepancies in before play and actual play.

Adding to this, is also the worry about the penalty that is imposed for exceeding the time limit—a monetary fine on the match fee (ICC, 2019b, pp. 38–39). While this was a general concern, players from low-income households particularly desired to ward it off as monetary earnings is one of the primary reasons for their participation in cricket which is considered a stable source of family income. Their anxiety is intensified as pressures to perform well unfold within a time limit, and the likelihood of monetary loss. Paradoxically then, a poor result—badly bowled balls and hastily completed overs—can be the consequence of trying to meet a rule that has been instituted to suit women’s alleged frailty, in effect circling back into reinforcing it.

Conclusion

While sport lends itself as one of the primary socio-cultural spaces for the constitution of gendered bodies (Dworkin & Messner, 2002, p. 347), the narratives and experiences of women cricketers demonstrate that it is also a site ripe with possibilities for interrogating and transgressing gender norms. The ease with which women play by rules prescribed for men and their tactics to deal with the added difficulties of an altered materiality and nature of play goes to show that: one, the binary logic of frail and non-frail in sport is invalid; and two, women are not frail. Yet, these transgressions and tactics coexist alongside a larger disjuncture between women cricketers’ sporting abilities and desire for fuller realisation of their athletic potential, on the one hand, and the gendered structure of play that limit the possibilities of such desires, on the other hand. The larger socio-cultural context continues to remain one where the men’s game and their style of play is considered as ‘real’ (Theberge, 1997, p. 70), and the women’s game its ‘adapted’ version (ibid., p. 69). The dismay of women cricketer’s can be gathered from what Tamanna had to say when asked about her thoughts on different rules for women in cricket:

The boundary, the ball is small, thirty yards [circle] is small, even time. I don’t like it at all. Even if someone jokes saying [a hit] will clear the boundary in the women’s game but in the men’s game it would be [caught and declared] out, I feel hurt at that very instance. I don’t know why. I can stand swear words but not this.