From Social Distancing to Social Inclusion – Τhe Emotions and Friendships of Women’s Cricket during the Pandemic

In the summer of 2020, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the sport’s national governing body in the United Kingdom, was set to introduce a new competition known as “The Hundred ,” featuring eight teams in major UK cities with gender aligned competitions (Lieu 2019). The new competition was designed to be a commercial powerhouse, driving growth into new markets and providing a platform for women’s cricket, strategically positioned alongside the men’s game, to showcase the product to a national TV audience. This paper looks at the topography of the women’s game leading up to the outbreak of the pandemic to provide context for the directives and regulations that the ECB made in March 2020. The main purpose of the study is to explore the impact that these decisions have had on a small sample of female managers and athletes associated with the new teams in The Hundred. One of the products of the lockdown was that, although female cricketers, coaches and administrators were frustrated by the lockdown restrictions and the lost opportunities, the community took the opportunity to enhance social bonds, reflect upon their work practices and reset their priorities. The emergence of social bonding themes permeated the interviews that were conducted, these themes are contextualized by social capital theory and are thus a key outcome of this research. Keywords: social-inclusion, female, gender, cricket, pandemic, lockdown, social-capital, anxiety, bonding