Don't give up on England's women's team

Fortunately, I have relatively few memories of the wasteland that was English men's cricket in the 1990s. The 1999 World Cup, in which England were knocked out on home soil without even getting past the first round, began a day after my 11th birthday; a few months later, England were ranked as the worst Test-playing nation in the world. It was a fitting end to a decade in which, as Andy Bull once described it in the Guardian, supporting English cricket "felt like a misfortune to be endured rather than an experience to be enjoyed". My formative years in cricket came after the worst was over.

It amazed me, later, to discover that the Barmy Army - the group of supporters who now number over 3,000 and accompany England everywhere they play, both at home and abroad - was actually formed amidst this wasteland. It was the 1994-95 Ashes tour in Australia, and three friends who were following England's (mis)fortunes (they lost the series 3-1) decided to form an official supporters group. The name "Barmy Army" in fact came from the Australian media, who simply could not understand why English fans continued to travel to the other side of the world and cheer for a team who were being monumentally thrashed. But they did.

Ten years later, in the 2005 Ashes, England's Barmy Army finally came good against the Aussies. Ten years is a long time to wait.

Since then, England's men may have had fluctuating fortunes, but they have never - with the possible exception of that last Ashes tour in 2013-14, which I am trying to wipe from my memory - quite looked as miserable as they did back in the '90s. This summer, against all expectations, they regained the Ashes: their fourth successive win against Australia on home soil.

The saddest thing about this summer for me was not watching my national team lose. It's the opportunity it has granted the misogynists to crawl out of the woodwork

By contrast, for England's women, it has not been a summer to remember. Not only have they lost the Ashes, but their performances with the bat have been nothing short of woeful. Managing just 168 in the first innings of the Test, they rolled over and died on the last afternoon to lose by 161 runs. The series culmination - the evening T20 in Hove where they collapsed to 87 chasing a mere 108 - was a nightmare of breathtakingly bad batting. Rarely in the past decade have England Women known a moment as low.

Yet, the saddest thing about this summer for me was not watching my national team lose. It's the opportunity it has granted the misogynists to crawl out of the woodwork - on Twitter, and even sometimes in the mainstream media - and claim that England's defeat is not the result of technical flaws with the bat, or poor shot selection, but somehow entirely down to their gender.

England lost the Canterbury Test, and then the Ashes, so the story goes, because women just cannot play Test cricket - no, wait - cricket, full stop. I wouldn't be surprised if Len Hutton, raised from the dead, repeats the phrase he originally uttered 50 years ago: "women playing cricket is like a man trying to knit".

The defence is always the same: that these women are now professionals. They deserve the same levels of scrutiny as their male counterparts, scream the media. They deserve to be slammed when they bat like that. It is an attitude that is hard to dispute; captain Charlotte Edwards does not herself dispute it. "We feel like we've let a lot of people down," she said after relinquishing the Ashes in Hove.

I have always fought for parity for women's cricket. I wholeheartedly accept that parity means scrutiny. But surely we should have moved past the days when scrutiny means questioning cricket's status as a "feminine-appropriate" sport?

There is another salient point here. It has been a historic 18 months for the women's game in England. In May last year, 18 of the top women players were awarded professional contracts by the ECB. Soon afterwards, England Women had gained their first standalone commercial sponsorship deal since the ECB took over the administration of the sport in 1998, a six-figure agreement with Kia Motors. Untold riches heaped on the women's team.

And yet, the statements by top ECB officials as each deal was announced did nothing to set me at ease. On the day the contracts were released, for example, Clare Connor (the ECB's head of women's cricket) said: "The performances delivered by Charlotte Edwards and her team over the past 12 months…unequivocally justify the financial reward that comes with the new England women's contracts." Then, on the day of the Kia deal, the then ECB chief executive David Collier was quoted as saying: ""This agreement is a ground-breaking first for the England women's team and reflects the huge success the side has enjoyed over the last 12 months." Connor added: "Major global brands want to be associated with winners".

The problem? This is sport. Someone always has to lose.

Eventually, it was going to be England.

Justifying commercial investment, media coverage and even the concept of player wages on the basis of success on the pitch in fact does nothing to overcome what is still a perennial problem for all women's sports. Two recent, potent examples: the lauding of the Lionesses, England's women's football team, back in July for their third-place finish in the World Cup; and last year's rugby union World Cup triumph by England women's team - resulting in the awarding of professional contracts to the top 20 players.

Both times, the coverage of these sports temporarily filled the back (and front) pages of the newspapers. This is all well and good, but glory in sport fades quickly. In both cases, in subsequent months, the media coverage of the teams - and the subsequent support it generated - quickly shrivelled up to normal (low) levels.

It's fair to say that the past 12 months have not been the happiest for the cricket team. They lost a Test match last August against an Indian team made up entirely of amateurs. They lost two of their three Women's Championship matches in New Zealand in February - matches they were expected to win with ease. And now, they have relinquished the Ashes at home for the first time since 2001.

The question is: what happens next? Should the media now decide that England's tours are not worth covering? Should Sky decide that their series are not worth televising? Should you, the fans, decide that you might as well not bother following them?

Or perhaps, alongside equality of scrutiny, the true definition of parity is this: accepting the reality of sport - that no one will win all the time - and granting the same levels of support that their male counterparts garner to women's teams, regardless of the result.

Did the whole of Australia decide to give up on supporting their men's team when they were bowled out for 60 at Trent Bridge? Did the Barmy Army give up trumpeting during the long, arid Ashes-less desert of the 1990s?

England may not win the World T20 next April. And they may not win the World Cup which they are hosting in August 2017. But they still deserve support, don't they?

Will you give it to them?