Women and girls now account for 22% of people playing cricket in Ireland, more than double the 9% share they held in 2013, in part thanks to Elaine Nolan, director of strategy and growth at Cricket Ireland
The former Ireland bowler joined Irish cricket’s governing body in 2017 after spending more than a decade in New Zealand and working as a game development manager with New Zealand Cricket.
Over the past seven years, she has played a crucial role in implementing key youth participation programmes such as Smash It and It’s Wicket! as well as the On the Front Foot female leadership development programme, through which more than 30 women have progressed into leadership roles.
With Ireland playing England in two T20 internationals this weekend, Cricket Ireland will host the ‘Conversations in Championing Female Leaders’ conference at Croke Park on Saturday to share its progress with other cricketing bodies.
Supported by Sport Ireland and Sport Northern Ireland, the event aims to explore the growing momentum behind women’s sports with discussions on practical ways to elevate visibility and opportunities for women and girls in sports.
Key themes will include the impact of targeted programmes on participation and leadership, the importance of strategic sponsorships, the value of inclusive broadcasting and reporting, and the essential role of male allyship in promoting women’s sports.
The event, which will take place at Croke Park, will feature panellists including Premier Sports CEO and former group head of RTÉ Sport Ryle Nugent, HerSport co-founder Mohammed Mahomed, Certa managing director Orla Stevens and Teneo Sport and Sponsorships managing director Kelli O’Keeffe.
Around 100 people including female leaders from International Cricket Council (ICC) Europe and representatives from Cricket Scotland, Cricket Finland, Cricket Sweden, and England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are expected to attend, and Nolan sees such events as “massively important” for widening the conversation around female leadership.
ICC Europe held a similar meeting last year, bringing female leaders from across cricketing nations together in London for two days, which Nolan described as being “powerful”.
“You can imagine it’s quite a male-dominated sport, so I think there were about 12 or 14 of us in a room who don’t necessarily get to work with other females on a day-to-day basis, so it was really, really empowering and brilliant to hear some of the challenges … but also the learnings on how we manoeuvre through [them], and how do you break down barriers and promote the game,” she said.
Saturday’s match against England will be broadcast on Virgin Media Television in a major boost to the profile of women’s cricket in Ireland, and inclusive broadcasting and reporting is one of the major themes of Saturday’s event.
Nugent, who commissioned the first women’s rugby international for broadcast on RTÉ television, Mahomed and O’Keeffe will give insights on the changing broadcast market and the benefits and opportunities inherent to carving out space for women’s sport in the media.
Another theme is the importance of male allyship, and Nolan certainly feels everyone at Cricket Ireland is pushing in the same direction to increase gender balance in the playing population, and the organisation has been ahead of the curve in terms of professionally contracting female players.
“We’re really invested in ensuring that there is equity in the space. It obviously does take a bit of time, but people like Ryle and Kelli are having those conversations, and Mohammed and HerSport.ie promoting the female game is really crucial in ensuring that sports capitalise on the opportunity,” she said.
Additionally, Nolan believes professional contracts have shown girls there is “a genuine career path” and that a career in cricket is “a viable option to them,” highlighting the likes of off-spinner Freya Sargent, who is on a full-time contract after leaving school recently, and Women’s International Player of the Year Orla Prendergast.
“These are all brilliant ambassadors who are on the global stage, either in internationals or franchises, and outstanding players. I think you only have to look at the mascots showing up at the international games and fans coming to get signatures from the women’s team to see the genuine impact,” said Nolan.
“Having those visible role models is really, really important for youth sport in general, but I think it’s an added benefit for girls sport.”
Behind the scenes, On the Front Foot has helped to increase female representation within cricketing leadership positions in Ireland, including coaching roles, club officialdom or board member positions, with national selector Ciara O’Brien, Cricket Ireland board member Sukhi Byrne, and international scoring panel member Emma Macbeth having all come through the programme.
Following the first year of the programme, during the Covid pandemic in 2021 when it was online-only, 62% of participants have gone into positions of power and 17 people have signed up for the 2024-25 edition.
“It’s a really great programme,” adds Nolan. “A lot of like-minded people coming together with a genuine passion for women in sport, but also cricket.
“On the Front Foot is opening doors or providing [participants] with the confidence to push the door a little bit and insert themselves to support the women’s game.”
There are by-products of the programme, toom such as the advent of girls-only competitions in Munster, where Cricket Ireland has traditionally struggled to make a dent, and Nolan expects that On the Front Foot will evolve to meet the changing needs with future iterations.
“We’re very proud of it. It has created a whole new cohort for us to be able to speak to and hear from, and that feedback is just so key in improving things, so now we have 46 people who have been through our programme who are on the ground and can feed back to us about the challenges and the opportunities and spaces that we might not have necessarily had input in or data on before.”
The progress of the Smash It (for boys and girls aged five to nine) and It’s Wicket! (for girls aged nine to 13), meanwhile, has been slow and steady over the past four years, but 800 kids have now participated in the programmes
Nolan believes participation numbers will start to double and triple year-on-year due to growing “traction and buy-in” by cricket clubs, a third of which now run the programmes.
Looking ahead to ‘Conversations in Championing Female Leaders’, Nolan is excited about the positivity she expects the event to generate and the open, transparent conversations that might not otherwise take place.
“I’m sure there will be ideas that we’ll be able to implement off the back of it,” she added. “It’s exciting to have so many people in a room who are passionate about women’s sport … and we’re just delighted we get to host it.”
Photo: Elaine Nolan. (Pic: Supplied)