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Home / Whanganui Chronicle

Editorial: Female voices add to cricket coverage

Zaryd Wilson
By Zaryd Wilson
Editor - Whanganui Chronicle ·Whanganui Chronicle·
11 Dec, 2017 03:00 AM2 mins to read

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Former White Ferns cricket captain Maia Lewis joined the Sky Sport TV commentary team this weekend. Photo / Peter Meecham

Former White Ferns cricket captain Maia Lewis joined the Sky Sport TV commentary team this weekend. Photo / Peter Meecham

Few things sound like summer as dulcet cricket commentary providing the soundtrack to a day on the couch.

And nothing says progress like women occupying seats formerly the exclusive domain of men.

The two combined over the weekend as Debbie Hockley and Maia Lewis stepped into the commentary box for the test match between New Zealand and the West Indies in Hamilton.

Like the rest of the commentary team, Hockley and Lewis are retired international cricketers and in the case of the former, one of this country's best.

The difference?

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For the first time in a men's international match in New Zealand, female voices talked viewers through the televised coverage.

It's just another milestone for women in sport that should have been passed years ago.
Hockley played in 19 test matches and 118 ODI's finishing with an international record better than most, if not all, of the men sitting alongside her.

She is one of only three Kiwis (male or female) in the International Cricket Council's Hall of Fame and last year she became the first female president of New Zealand Cricket.

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Lewis played just short of 100 internationals, some as captain, and has been involved in coaching.

The pair are as qualified as any of their male colleagues to describe and analyse the game.

If you think anything other than sexism has kept the likes of Hockley and Lewis from commentating men's cricket before, consider that what they did this weekend broke new ground.

But women's cricket, where woman have been able to call the action, is also commentated by men - no questions asked.

Other than recognising women are just as capable, broadcaster Sky TV has also acknowledged female voices add to the perspectives its coverage offers.

"They are now starting to say, as all audiences do, 'how come what I see on television isn't reflecting me or my views?'," Sky's director of sport Richard last Richard Last said.

The summer soundtrack just got more diverse.

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