Honour boards and "gifted" Test matches

The Ashes Test match at the MCG highlighted the conditional nature of women's inclusion in sport

Photo by Pickled Stardust on Unsplash

A world record crowd for a women’s Test match on the hallowed turf of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. A completed Ashes whitewash for the Australian team. Centuries to Annabel Sutherland and Beth Mooney. A match-defining nine wicket haul for Alana King. These were the moments that exemplified the Test match, that will go down in history - a story of domination by Australia.

But among all the celebration, two incidents have sat with me, a gnawing feeling of discomfort that tempers the excitement. They are indicative of some of the attitudes towards women’s sport that linger even after all the progress that has been made.

The first of these popped up when videos were shared on social media showing an MCG staff member adding Sutherland’s name to the batting honour board after she scored her century. Naturally Mark Latham chimed in, saying that people may confuse Sutherland’s name on the board for her father’s. This is despite the fact that Sutherland’s father James never played for Australia, played only four first-class matches for Victoria, had a top score of 18, would be highly unlikely to have played a Test in 2025 at the age of 59 having retired from cricket 21 years earlier, and as the MCG account pointed out, does not have a first name beginning with A.

Photo credit: The Female Athlete Project

However, Latham’s voice was echoed by many men across all social media channels, who insisted that “the girls” should have a separate board. No doubt many of these men believe themselves to be supporters of women’s sport, they may even have tuned in to the game throughout the three days. But by placing Sutherland’s name below Steve Smith’s, we encountered a boundary of inclusion. It was all fun and games when the women were beating England and there were some jokes we could all get behind, but this takes things too far.

For how can these women march in and expect to take up space amongst the true greats of the game? Never mind the fact that there have never been complex clauses to inclusion on the honour boards. There is not a separate board for those who grind out a century against India at the top of their game and those who knock it around against a fading West Indies side. The conditions are simple. Score a century or take five wickets in a Test match played at the ground.

Add to all this the fact that Sutherland was not the first woman to have her name on one of the honour boards. Peggy Antonio is on the bowling honour board after taking five wickets in a Test in 1935. Imagine outing yourself as being less progressive than the board of the Melbourne Cricket Club in 1935.

The second incident that drew my attention was a little subtler - this came from cricket journalist Gideon Haigh, on the ABC’s sports show Offsiders. Speaking of the England women’s team, Haigh said:

“Probably the worst team ever to be gifted a Test match at the MCG.”

I’m not here to argue that England played a great game or that anyone is being too harsh on them for the way they performed. I have been largely heartened by the coverage that is prepared to offer deep criticism - it is a sign that women’s sport is being taken more seriously.

My issue in this case is with the word “gifted”. Haigh could have said England were “probably the worst team ever to play a Test match at the MCG.” But his word choice once again exposes the boundary to inclusion that many subconsciously hold in their minds. How many times have struggling men’s teams lost by more than an innings in a Test match at one of the world’s prestigious grounds? While they are criticised in the media for these losses, there is never a suggestion that the very opportunity to play there is a gift, something unearned.

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These two incidents have sat with me since the completion of the Test, niggling away until I felt compelled enough to finally get around to starting my Substack. Anything that is annoying enough to beat procrastination is very annoying indeed.

The perpetuation of these attitudes is what often makes me feel at odds with the current tone of women’s sport coverage, peppered as it is with 90s style “girl power” vibes and the insistence that “it’s not women’s sport, it’s just sport!”

This tone gives the impression that the battle is over, glosses over the struggles of the past to get to this point and ignores the fact that women’s inclusion in sport is still considered conditional in the minds of many.

As these two incidents highlight, those conditions include not upstaging the men or doing anything to suggest that men’s and women’s positions in sport are equal and only accepting the “gift” of playing on a prestigious ground if they can guarantee a certain level of play. But there are many more of these conditions - from performing an appropriate level of femininity to not being too opinionated - and they will make themselves known every time a female or nonbinary athlete dares to breach one.

Women’s sport is fighting against centuries of exclusion and underfunding and declaring the battle won will not make it so. It will take more than a positive attitude to gain true equality and it begins by ensuring that inclusion is not conditional. Women have a right to exist in sport, which means a right to excel and be celebrated for it in the same way their male counterparts are. And it also means they have a right to fail and not have it be representative of their gender as a whole.