NEW Paper: Relative Age Effects in Women’s and Girls’ Cricket

Paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00315125251342615

Highlights

Significant RAEs within the national pathway

RAEs increase with competition level

RAE Reversal at senior level across all formats

Effects significant for batters & bowlers but higher in batters

Those born in the first half of the year are favoured at Regional Festivals (62%), School Games (80%) & at the U19 World Cup (93%), across skill-sets (i.e., batters, bowlers). However, in senior cohorts (i.e., England T20, England ODI, England Test) this selection asymmetry was reversed, as more relatively younger batters and bowlers were selected.

These junior levels of RAE are in excess of the boys national pathway which itself is significant at U15, U17 & U19. Stakeholders should implement strategies to create a more equitable pathway and support all players in realising their potential.

Possible reasons for our findings include:

Short From (white ball) cricket only especially T20/100 ball.

More competition at fewer clubs at the highest level (than the male pathway).

Two Year Age Grouping

As girls start puberty earlier than boys, by 2 years on average, this may impact the effects of RAE. Early maturation selection bias may not exist or possibly be reversed at specific ages in girls. We don’t know! Maturation selection bias, in women & girls cricket is unpublished.

Discusion

Any conclusions about transition/conversion rates, in a RAE context, from junior to senior levels, that can be derived from this study, should perhaps be carefully considered. The current junior population is developing in a far more competitive professional environment than the majority of current senior players had in their developmental phase.

Current RAE in junior female cricket may ‘knock-on’ onto senior professional cohorts as can be seen in both the new Tier 1 & previous regionally organised squads.

Limitations

Important contextual factors such as maturation, training age/experience and genetic factors (e.g. height) were not accounted for. Limited data access & the cross-sectional nature of the study.

This data doesn’t include the last U19 World Cup squad of 2024 which had a more balanced Birth Quarter selection. However across a total of 12 World Cup games no BQ3 batter has EVER batted in the top 6 and ONLY 4 of 72 possible top 6 batting opportunities have been for a BQ4.

Although not shown in this paper, analysis of playing opportunities at the Regional Festivals & School Games level, show that later born play relatively fewer matches and bat less than early born (especially Q1).

Conclusion

As in the men’s pathway, the women’s pathway is providing too many early born players who will likely be lost from the game at the highest levels. In conjunction not enough later born are being given enough opportunities to develop.

It is hoped that key industry stakeholders will collaborate with researchers to design, implement, and evaluate strategies, such as age-ordered shirt numbering for (extended) trials/training (Mann & van Ginneken, 2017), annual reporting, and appropriate coach education.