‘ I think I could see the turning point … people just came for good cricket ’: The Women's Big Bash League, The Hundred and female cricketers’ experiences of professionalisation

In this article, we discuss elite female cricketers’ experiences of playing during a period of rapid organisational and commercial change. As the first article to centre research specifically on the women who are playing cricket through this period, we draw on the wider lens of research on gender and professionalisation to document how elite female cricketers experience the global game. Utilising semi-structured, online interviews with elite female cricketers who have experience of playing in The Women's Big Bash League and/or The Hundred, we explored issues of visibility; career development; skills development; and the revolutionising potential of changes in the current and future game. These findings highlight both the many positive experiences of elite women in the game and the distinct developmental trajectories of the professionalisation of women's sport relative to the men's game. Our research highlights how professionalisation entails both divergent and convergent processes in women's sport, and thus how such processes are both geographically and sports-specific in character.