Crick­et was seen as an ex­pres­sion of mas­culin­i­ty in Eng­land and in the colonies. The mas­cu­line qual­i­ties of a crick­eter were seen as courage de­ter­mi­na­tion, en­durance, strength, en­er­gy and fit­ness. This view of mas­culin­i­ty and the as­sump­tion that women re­quired pro­tec­tion from men re­in­forced the crick­et gen­der ide­ol­o­gy while at the same jus­ti­fy­ing fe­male ex­clu­sion on the ba­sis fe­male weak­ness.

The sit­u­a­tion rep­re­sent­ed a strong sense of 'blokeism,' where sport pro­vides a so­cial space for men to de­fine them­selves and en­gage in un­fet­tered male bond­ing. And in crick­et this 'blokeism' was ev­i­dent as the home of British crick­et, MCC, was an all- male club. The so­cial ex­clu­sion was al­so seen in the ab­sence of fe­male um­pires and the non-ad­mit­tance to the pavil­ions of some coun­ty grounds.

De­spite the chal­lenges of so­cial ex­clu­sion the first record­ed women's crick­et match was be­tween eleven maids each from Bram­ley and Ham­ble­don. In Eng­land the Women Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (WCA) was formed in 1926. The WCA main fo­cus was the de­vel­op­ment of women's crick­et and em­pha­sized the for­ma­tion of clubs through­out the coun­try to in­crease par­tic­i­pa­tion. (Williams).

As in the men's game, those who con­trolled the WCA be­longed to the priv­i­leged so­cial class­es and or­gan­ised the women's game along the val­ues and prin­ci­ples of the men's crick­et clubs for those who be­long to the south of Eng­land. The class di­vi­sion was al­so re­flect­ed in the school sys­tem as crick­et as high­ly re­strict­ed to pri­vate and se­lect­ed sec­ondary schools to which work­ing-class chil­dren rarely at­tend­ed. The Aus­tralian Women's Crick­et Coun­cil was es­tab­lished in 1931 and the New Zealand Women's Crick­et Coun­cil was formed in 1934. In 1934-35, Eng­land trav­eled to Aus­tralia to play three Test match­es and one in New Zealand; a rec­i­p­ro­cal tour by Aus­tralia for three match­es took place in 1937.

Women's crick­et in the sub­con­ti­nent was slow­er to de­vel­op com­pared to Eng­land and Aus­tralia. In­dia's first in­ter­na­tion­al match took place in 1975, forty years af­ter Eng­land and Aus­tralia played the first women test se­ries. In 1997, rep­re­sen­ta­tive teams for Pak­istan and Sri Lan­ka played in their first ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al event the 1997 World Cup. A num­ber of fac­tors in­clud­ing re­li­gion and play­ing ap­par­el such as wear­ing cu­lottes (di­vid­ed skirt) as was done by Aus­tralia, Eng­land and New Zealand as op­posed to trouser ac­count­ed for the slow de­vel­op­ment of the women's game in the sub­con­ti­nent.

As in Eng­land, Aus­tralia and the sub­con­ti­nent, the gen­der struc­ture of crick­et was re­in­forced in the West In­dies along the lines of mas­culin­i­ty and pa­tri­archy. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there was no vest­ed in­ter­est on the part of the colo­nial­ist nor the na­tion­al­ist move­ment in the Caribbean to chal­lenge the pre­vail­ing cul­ture of dom­i­nant pa­tri­archy. As much as the in­sti­tu­tion of crick­et pro­vid­ed a space to ex­pose and chal­lenge the pre­vail­ing so­cial class and racial in­equal­i­ties, it was very sto­ic and un­wa­ver­ing when ad­dress­ing the is­sue of gen­der. Both the African and the In­di­an males viewed crick­et as sym­bol­ic of their ac­com­plish­ments and ex­e­cut­ed a gen­der ide­ol­o­gy that on­ly served to mar­gin­al­ize women crick­eter's claims for le­git­i­ma­cy.

The de­vel­op­ment of women's crick­et in the West In­dies gained mo­men­tum in the post-World War pe­ri­od that co­in­cid­ed with the pe­ri­od of po­lit­i­cal suc­cess of na­tion­al­ist and so­cial­ist move­ments against the im­pe­ri­al­ist move­ments such as at­tain­ing black lead­er­ship of the West In­dies team. The Ja­maica Women's Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (JW­CA) was formed in 1966 as the first es­tab­lished body for women's crick­et in the re­gion; sim­i­lar or­gan­i­sa­tions were al­so de­vel­oped in oth­er ter­ri­to­ries such as Trinidad and To­ba­go, Bar­ba­dos, St. Lu­cia, St. Vin­cent, Grena­da and Guyana.

Ja­maica played Eng­land three two-day 'Test' match­es in 1970. In 1973, Ja­maica and Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came mem­bers of the In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Crick­et Coun­cil (IW­CC) and par­tic­i­pat­ed in the first Women's World Cup. In 1975, the Caribbean Women's Crick­et Fed­er­a­tion (CW­CF) was formed with the Ja­maican Mon­i­ca Tay­lor at the helm.

"I don't feel it is nec­es­sary to know ex­act­ly what I am. The main in­ter­est in life and work is to be­come some­one else that you were not in the be­gin­ning." Michel Fou­cault