Anything he can play

Outdated rules that prevent the girls joining in with the boys? That's not cricket, says Tanya Aldred

A female cricketer made the front page of The Times last Friday. Not because she had scored a match-winning century or taken a hat-trick (though English women had managed both the previous week, unnoticed by news editors), but because she was selected to play for an otherwise all-male team, West of England Under-15 Boys. Laura Harper, a 15-year-old off-spinner, thereby became the first female ever to be picked for a regional team of the opposite sex.

She has chosen not to represent them because the fixture clashes with the Women's County Championship, and Laura plays for the ladies' side. She admitted that, although she would love to break into the boys XI, "my long-term future lies with England Ladies". But does it have to?

Physical differences mean that even the fastest, strongest woman will never be as quick, or able to jump as high or as far as the strongest man. Galling, of course, but that's evolution for you. Luckily, not all sports depend purely on power. Spinners such as Harper rely more on guile and flight than beef and brawn, though a bulging forearm is no disadvantage.

If she is good enough why shouldn't she continue playing for men's sides right the way up to full international level? England's spin department could certainly do with the boost. And there is no law of cricket to say that she can't - presumably because the male hierarchy couldn't believe the possibility would ever arise.

Other sportswomen aren't as lucky, falling victim to rules that have passed their sell-by-date. France was banned from this week's European under-19 cricket championship for, among other things, daring to select a leg spinner called Cindy. Then there is Ellen White, Arsenal under-11 midfielder who scored 109 goals for Aylesbury Town under-9s last season, only to be informed by the great and the bigoted of the Chiltern Youth League that she was no longer eligible to play. This is despite an FA ruling that girls can play mixed football until the under-10s.

Her father Jon, who coaches the Arsenal girls' under-11 side, said: "All the best girls have played with boys or for a boys' side. Preventing them from doing so... is a waste of talent and isn't helping the development of women's football." He sees no reason why the FA shouldn't run a system where there are girls' leagues, boys' leagues and mixed leagues, right the way through to adulthood.

More and more women are choos ing to play sports that were previously regarded as a male preserve. Even 15 years ago, girls who played hockey and netball at school were thought of as hearty, but girls who played football, rugby or cricket were downright weird. Women just weren't built right, they had to be protected from their own biology. Those breasts were, frankly, not very practical, and as for menstruation... Today, women can box, pole-vault and triple-jump, and football is the fastest-growing sport for teenage girls in the UK.

Of course not all women want to play with men. Arsenal, Britain's most successful women's football club, segregate male and female recruits from day one. One of their under-16 stars, Fiona O'Shea, says she would rather play with girls because the boys' game is too physical, though team mate Kate Connelly would like to have a go.

Both of them aim to play professionally, not at home, but in Sweden, Italy or America where they can gain recognition in their own right, without having to compete with men to make the headlines, and could earn a living. As Sue Lopez, an ex-England international, said: "Girls in England think football means Shearer and Owen. In America, girls, boys and adults look up to Michele Akers, Brandi Chastain or Mia Hamm. They're massive icons."

Some sports remain segregated by tradition rather than rulings, rhyme or reason. Take snooker. No woman has ever got through to the televised stage of the Embassy World Championship, though it is an open competition. Alison Fisher, who won the women's title a record number of times in the 1980s, has now retreated to the pool circuit in America. Or darts. Again, men have no physical advantage - yes, Eric Bristow was a big lad, but not much of it resided in his grip - but women have consistently failed to reach the final stages of the Embassy world professional competition, the darts equivalent of the FA cup. Perhaps women, even laddettes, still don't gather in smoky pubs regularly enough - or perhaps they suffer from the delusion that they are there for conversation not competition.

Conversely, mixed pairings positively flourish in racket sports, particularly tennis. From the local tennis club, to Grand Slam events, mixed doubles are a favourite with players and crowds. And Britons can play, too. Our last Wimbledon champions were the golden coupling of Jo Durie and Jeremy Bates in 1987. And it was Billie Jean King who famously challenged Bobby Riggs and won.

Women who play sport with men don't want to be treated with kid gloves. They don't want to face a softer tackle or a slower serve, any more than they'd expect a man to open the door for them. They choose to play with men, either because there isn't a local women's side, or because they are good enough to do so and want a stiffer challenge.

Part of the reason cases such as Harper's gain so much notoriety is that, apart from tennis and athletics, women's sport has such a low profile in this country. In Australia, netball is one of the biggest draws, attracting acres of media coverage. And the recent women's world cup final between the US and China attracted more than 90,000 fans to the Pasadena Rose bowl in California. Here, only a few of the games were televised, and then only on Eurosport.

Hardly a surprise, then, if women are no longer content just to watch men play sport or to be consigned to single-sex teams. And if women can play for men's teams, then men should be able to turn out for women's, though certain fragile male egos might not fancy that much.

Tanya Aldred is assistant editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly