About Me   -   Don Miles

Photo Courtesy Dave Burt Photography

** If you check Google this will mislead! Search for the "Bat & Ball Pub, Clanfield".
Broadhalfpenny Down (pronounced Broad-Haypenny) cricket ground is obvious on Google Earth.
Many believe the game was virtually invented here although Slindon in Sussex also makes the same claim!
The team however did beat the "Rest of England" at one point.

More probably the first set of rules was written down here.

(Before they became "Laws")

I am always anxious to hear from anyone interested in the game, be they players, officials or spectators, or even someone simply searching for some historical fact or statistic. If you are, I'll do my best to help. It simply isn't possible to upload all the scorecards, statistics etc which people have been kind enough to provide.

There is a huge selection of stats here.

I would also welcome opinions about this site and suggestions on how it could be improved.

... or even just say "hello" ....

I would like to hear from you ..

• .. if you have any corrections to make to information contained within these pages.

• .. if you have any new information you consider could be added to these pages.

• .. if you have any links to sites containing information on Women's Cricket.

• .. if you are aware that any links, either within the site or to other sites, are broken.

• .. if you have any stories on Women's Cricket around the world.

• .. if you are unhappy with an image of you I have used and would like it removed. I will do so immediately!!

Raison d'être for this site

When I started watching women's cricket in the middle to late nineties I noticed that cameras appeared to be almost totally absent from the boundary at women's matches. It seemed wrong to me that while men playing the sport at the highest level would have a fine scrap book at the end of their careers, women players wearing their country and county shirts would not.

Having been interested in photography all my life I started carrying a camera to matches and this site was born in 1997. The fact that I felt women were not being treated fairly is the reason I have always used the mantra "if you're in the picture it's free".

Today a host of cameras adorn the boundary at any women's international and are increasingly seen at lower levels of the sport too.

"Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words."

Believed to be the earliest version of this well-known phrase

I have to admit that this expression appears in the header to my home page slightly tongue in cheek. I cannot and should not pretend it's true and while some photographers will count the pixels and tell it's many more than a thousand, a well-crafted piece of writing or speech can convey an atmosphere at a match as well or better than any picture. Anyone lucky enough to have heard John Arlott commentate on the BBC's cricket coverage will know that full well.

So why the note? Well I always see the writer of an article recognised somewhere, often immediately below the title, the photographer who has taken the shot that accompanies this is frequently ignored. Often no credit to someone who has sat at the game glued to an eyepiece and consequentially missing quite a bit of the match - think about it!

This particularly galls when it is obvious the writer was never in the ground anyway but simply checked the scorecard and written his/her piece from an office or back bedroom.

You will not be surprised to learn a photographer has to actually be at the ground to take photographs!

Long may the number of cameras around the ground (and those with notebooks or laptops in front of them) increase! This sport has deserved wider coverage for years. It's heartening to see it reaching towards the status it deserves.