Test Match Special - How England won the 1993 Women’s World Cup

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Alison Mitchell is alongside cricket journalist and historian Raf Nicholson to look back at England’s second World Cup title, which they won on home soil in 1993.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Bring more gear, carry more passengers, face greater challenges. Welcome to the world of Defender, with seating up to eight, ample cargo space and legendary off-road capability. It's built to make the most of every adventure. Learn more at landrover.ca. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Hello, this is Alison Mitchell with a special episode of the TMS podcast. We're going to look back at the 1993 Women's World Cup, which was won by the tournament hosts England.

It was the second time they won the tournaments and the second on home soil. I'll be joined by cricket writer and historian Raff Nicholson to discuss the dominance of New Zealand in the group stages, the first ever hat trick in a World Cup, and the fact that the final was broadcast on the BBC's iconic grandstand television show. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live.

Well, Raff, first of all, we've got to touch on the fact that this is a tournament that very nearly didn't happen at all. Why was that? Well, it was purely because the Women's Cricket Association just didn't have very much money. So women's cricket at this time kind of still being entirely run in an amateur way on a shoestring. and so the WCA needed external investment. So they'd been looking for sponsorship, but it was very difficult to come by.

So at the last minute, the tournament had to be rescued by a grant from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts who that was worth £90,000. So a significant amount of money and otherwise that would have been a short form that, yeah, as you say, it just would have meant that the tournament didn't happen at all. So what's the format of the tournament now?

we're up to 1993. How many teams are taking part? So we're up to eight competitors now, which was a record then for a women's cricket World Cup, although it would be surpassed in 1997, but yeah, so up to eight. So we still got Australia, England, New Zealand, Ireland and the Netherlands who'd competed at 1988. India back participating, their first World Cup since 1982, having missed out on the last one for financial reasons. They managed to get enough money together to get to England for 1993. And then two new teams playing in their first ever World Cup, Denmark and West Indies. So how has it decided, Ralph, which teams take part? Nowadays, of course, you have rankings and there's a huge qualification process. But who determines those teams?

How are they determined more to the point? In some ways, it was a more informal process. You had to be a member of the International Women's Cricket Council that was a prerequisite in order to be able to participate in a Women's World Cup. So to get IWCC membership, you would apply and the IWCC would decide

whether they felt that you had kind of enough structures and to support an international team. So that was the case, for example, with Denmark, who by this point had become an IWCC member. And then ultimately, it was, was up to those individual competing nations to be able to find the money to send a team to whichever country was acting as host. So this is why you get things like India not being

able to participate in 1988 because they just can't afford it, even though they do kind of, they have been invited to participate. So there are different factors at play than just you're an IWCC member. It's also, can you afford to get there? Yes, and we've got to remember that it's the IWCC. It's before the international cricket councils, we know it took over the running of the game. And of course, for each individual nation, they're run by their own women's cricket entity.

It's long before, again, 2005. So when the ECB took over the running of the women's game, Cricket Australia, BCCI, etc. So every country is running, yes, their own organisation still heavily relying on volunteers, aren't they at this stage? Yeah, absolutely. and you see that very much in the organisation of this tournament in England. It's having to be done kind of on the cheap.

They're having to kind of go cap in hand to lots of different club grounds and say, please can we come and play international women's cricket at your venue and some club grounds are actually a bit reluctant going, well, what do we get out of it? We don't know that they're going to be able to draw a crowd. There's actually a really interesting kind of regulation that the Women's Cricket Association introduced, whereby the umpires were granted permission to extend innings breaks in this tournament by up to 10 minutes because they were worried that there would be such a cue for the women's toilet because at so many of these club grounds they're set up to cater for men

and not for a load of women who are going to be playing and also obviously kind of turning up potentially to watch you're expecting more female-dominated crowds. So that kind of suggests the sort of where we are at this point in 1993 with the status of women's cricket. So if we compare it to 1973, 20 years on from when the first World Cup was staged in England, so has things progressed much in terms of the grounds where matches are staged?

Is there a discernible progression, or are we still within a similar sort of realm? Just don't think there had actually been that much progression, actually. It's really interesting, you know, if you look at the grounds, they're still having to use club grounds. places like Bannstead and Finch Hampstead and Ealing was used again. So that was the same venue in 1973 and 1993.

Ealing, you know, the players are actually having to roll the wicket themselves because there's nobody there to do it for them. And in 1993, actually, they're on kind of such a cost-saving budget that they're trying to actually stage almost all the matches in the home counties. Rather than in 1973, there was this really big drive to try and start. spread out a bit more around the country and take women's cricket to places it hadn't been before. In 1993, it was literally no, we know that we've got to try and accommodate these players and do things on the cheap. So we're going to limit where the grounds are geographically.

And by now, then, what's the format of the World Cup compared to that round robin in 1973? Well, it's very similar. It's another round robin. It's still 60 overs a side because still one day international cricket in the early 90s is 60 over as a side. And it does now have a final. I should say now the final is at Lords. So we have progressed a little bit there in terms of the hosts. So talk us through some of the key moments then as we progressed up to a final, which was ultimately televised on the BBC. We'll come back to that in a moment. but what was some of the key passages of playing key moments of these round robin stages? Well, we talked about the first hat trick in a World Cup.

So that was England's Carol Hodges against Denmark. And that was also the first ever hat trick by an English woman in international cricket. So, I mean, it wasn't the most – I mean, hat tricks are obviously brilliant, but Denmark were a kind of relatively weak side. of their first World Cup, England ended up winning the match by 239 runs and Carol Hodges took the last three Danish wickets to fall. So, you know, it's still something to celebrate, but that's sort of how that came about. There's obviously a lot of pressure on England as the hosts, because you always want to get to the final when you're hosting a World Cup,

but they actually lost their round-robin match to New Zealand by 25 runs. There were, I think it was five runouts in their run chase. So they're trying really hard, but that was a big disaster early on. New Zealand only made what, 127 in that particular match. Yeah, exactly. So it was one that England really were kicking themselves and going, we really should have won this. they then just scraped a win against India by three runs

and so at this point like England are on the verge of kind of not reaching the final the other kind of bit of context to say is that Australia kind of reigning world champions they'd won the World Cup in 1988 and they were really widely favourites to win the whole tournament You know, all of the pre-tournament press was basically saying, who are Australia going to face in the final? Now you've got an unbeaten New Zealand side who are kind of marching rampantly onto the final and you then end up with kind of by coincidence

the England playing Australia in their last match of their round robin and it becomes a must-win game. So for both sides, they have to win this to face New Zealand in the final. So lots of pressure, and you would expect Australia to win. And actually, this is kind of a similar roundabout at this time that I think it might even be the same day that England men lose the ashes to Australia at Headily.

So suddenly all of the hopes of a nation are on the England women's cricket team, captain by Karen Smithies. And they're playing this match at Guildford. And I spoke to cricket Australia as Belinda Clark about this a few years ago, and she said it felt like a test match and that's kind of was sort of like the pinnacle format

and so it just because of the amount of attention and the amount of pressure on this match at Guilford suddenly it becomes this really important moment in the World Cup. Give us a sense of what some of that attention was in the media coverage by now in 1993. I would still say that kind of between World Cups, you're not talking a huge amount

of press coverage. So again, it was a really important moment for women's cricket in terms of sort of being able to create public interest and create media interest, actually. And the tournament itself got a lot of coverage and in particular kind of this last match, England v Australia. I mean, there's obviously that kind of historic rivalry that feeds into that, but also the final being at Lords gets a lot of attention. and ended up being kind of ended up being televised at the last minute by BBC Grandstand because, spoiler alert, England did get to the final. And so you've got the Home Nation playing in the final.

It's interesting to think about the fact that it might have ended up being Australia and New Zealand. And then that probably wouldn't have been shown, the BBC probably wouldn't have made the decision to then have it as part of their live coverage on Grandstand. Do you have any details of who actually commentated that match for the BBC? yeah Jonathan Agnew was one of the commentators and I think that might have been one of his first times doing commentary on women's cricket

so it would actually be really interesting if you could dig out some audio of that well Kitson's on her way now and bowling to Campbell who's gone for a huge hit away on the onside it could be caught on it British takes the catch England have won the World Cup Britain throws the ball into the air she's absolutely delighted England have won by 67 runs.

A tremendous performance by them. They've thoroughly deserved the victory. And I believe that Cathy Mowett, who was kind of one of the leading lights of the Women's Cricket Association at that time joined him in the commentary box. So they had the sort of the expert voice and the well-established commentator voice as well,

which is a kind of mark of the sort of esteem, I suppose, with which they were, with which they were granting it to have Jonathan Agnew doing commentary. The TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. And that broadcast on the BBC's Grandstand program, which for those outside of the UK, grandstand was a long-time staple, Saturday afternoon, weekend sports show that if you loved sport, you just tuned in

and it covered everything that was happening, that was significant in the world of sports. attracted two and a half million viewers, which at the time would have been unthinkable for the women's game. Yeah, yeah, a really exciting showcase for them, absolutely. The match began at 10.45 in the morning, a crowd of only around 5,000, Raf, in the ground, but of course, but only half of the ground was open, I believe. Yeah, exactly. A decision made by the MCC, I suppose. Yeah, It did mean that kind of lots of friends and family bunched in together and created perhaps a little bit more of an atmosphere.

But yeah, that was kind of based on the level of crowd. And not just one hat trick in the tournament because you weighed a long time for an initial first hat trick from Carol Hodges and Julie Harris took New Zealand's first hat trick in an ODI as well. That was against West Indies. New Zealand, what really dominant, weren't they, throughout the group stages of this tournament? Yeah, absolutely.

And perhaps kind of slightly unexpectedly, I think, because as I say, Australia were massive pre-tournament favourites. England were the hosts. And yet it's New Zealand who managed to kind of go through the group stages unbeaten and actually beat Australia in the group stages, which is a huge upset. Notably, Rath, the 1988 World Cup had a tournament sponsor. Players were still being billeted with families there for that tournament in Australia.

No sponsor, no title sponsor for this 1993 World Cup. What was the situation around players travel? Where were they staying as well for this tournament across England? Yeah, so the WCA tried really hard to find a sponsor, but unfortunately didn't get any bites. So that was part of the reason why everything was being done on this. shoestring and that included the accommodation. So they had four teams being put up at Surrey University in student dorms and then the other four teams including England and Australia being put up at Wellington College. So a public school or a private school. So again, it's you're

talking dormitory accommodation here. We're not talking hotels and we're not even really when we're not even really talking billeting, this is basically the cheapest option that you can get. And they're in these student dorms from start to finish. The only exception to that is the night before the final. They found the money to put England and New Zealand up in a hotel. But otherwise, they're going back to these student dorms at the end of long days in the field and then having to do their own laundry. Well, when it came to the final itself, Raf, at Lords,

5,000 people in the ground. When New Zealand and England had met in the group stage, there were all those runouts, which the New Zealand captain, Sarah Ellingworth, that has said that as captain, she felt as if she knew what was going to happen before it did be in the field. She put it down to the best fielding performance

that she'd ever been involved in. Others have said that, well, England rather threw away the game and those runouts were, yeah, due to some unnecessary slogging. But they meet again for the, final and there's some crucial moments in the field there aren't they and this time it's new zealand not having a good fielding performance yeah absolutely so um this is new zealand's

first ever match at lords um and i think that they will all kind of admit that it got to them a bit um and that you know i i spoke to off spinner katherine campbell again a few years ago and she said like basically we choked um we got there and we just kind of couldn't handle the pressure of it being a final and it being at Lords. So it was a bit of a role reversal, as you say, from that group stage match. England batting first put on 195 for five. And part of that came with New Zealand dropping for quite crucial catches. So Jeanette Britton was one of those put down and she top scored with 48 at the top of the order for England. So it was a little bit of a disaster in the field for New Zealand.

Is there much more that Catherine Campbell could recall from that final about Lords, about, I mean, goodness, even having a Lord's lunch? Did they have a Lord's lunch that day? Because that's always a highlight for so many players. Yeah, they would have. She didn't particularly talk about that. I think, I just think that there was a real sense for New Zealand of it being a little bit of a missed opportunity to take home a sort of maiden World Cup title because they,

we've said that Australia were favourites for the World Cup but ahead of this match for example the bookmakers it's actually funny because Karen Smithies the England captain worked for a bookmakers her own bookmakers made New Zealand favourites to win this final which I'm guessing was probably a bit galling for her

so yeah New Zealand massive favourites and yet it was just kind of slightly overwhelmed by the occasion so in the end they were they were all out for 128 they just fell well short and really kind of never looked like getting the runs. Well, in the course of the final,

Jam Britain opening the batting for England made 48s, and over the tournament, Raff, she became the first player to score 1,000 runs in Women's World Cup matches. Yeah, and I think we should just take a moment to remember what an incredible player that she was for England. So 410 runs in this tournament, averaging 51, I think it was, including a century against India at Fitch Hampstead, which was that match that England just scraped home in.

It was quite fitting that she then went on and took that final catch to see New Zealand all out in the final. She was just kind of this fantastic player for England, both with the bat and in the field. She was kind of, she was just sort of, she's seen as kind of a bit ahead of her time, I think, just being really athletic in the field, doing a lot of diving, you know,

just this really sort of beautiful, effortless, Cricketer. And compared in her day to Graham Gooch, I think that nowadays we might just say, no, she was Jan Britton. She was unrivaled in international women's cricket. So yeah, she had a brilliant tournament and was really kind of fundamental to England's success. But the other thing, I think that was fundamental to their success, was having Ruth Priddo as their coach. Again, I just feel that Ruth Priddo should get so many more plaudits than she's actually got. She was the first ever coach of the England women's cricket team, so they didn't have a head coach until I think it was 1987. And so she'd been head coach in the 1988

World Cup, which England had lost the final to Australia. And they were really seen as kind of very second best to Australia at this time and even kind of coming into this tournament. But what Ruth Priddo did was sort of institute these really radical professional-esque programs even though she wasn't doing it with a professional budget. So she was working as a PE lecturer at Chelsea College of Physical Education.

So she had a lot of kind of connections and she brought them to bear. And so she introduced, for example, things like when I interviewed her, she said, oh, all of these England girls were fish and chip girls and I got them to eat vegetables, which is just quite funny looking back now.

and she had them like running up and down the beach at Eastbourne to try and increase their fitness. But she was also doing things like, for example, she got them doing juggling, juggling sessions to try and improve their hand-eye coordination and like throwing the javelin to improve their fielding skills. But the really the most radical thing was like sports psychology. This just wasn't a thing in cricket at the time,

even men's cricket. Sports psychology, everyone would have said, no, this is a nonsense. but she actually employed a sports psychologist who she knew at Chelsea, a guy called Steve Bull, who then went on to work with the England men's team. And so the England players recall, like having the two years before the World Cup, they were in these classrooms and they were having to like stand up and shout, we will win and things like this.

Positive affirmations. Exactly. And the other thing, you know, there's a great story from the World Cup itself where they arrived at Wellington College before Australia did. They were both being put up there for the duration. And England had been put on the ground floor and Australia had been put on the first floor. And Ruth Priddo said, no, we're not having that

because then they'll be above us. We're going to be above them. So she swapped the room allocations around and she put England on the first floor. And so that was kind of, you know, that was the importance with which she held that sort of psychological thing. It was all about self-belief.

It was if we believe that we can beat Australia, then we can. And if we believe that we can beat New Zealand in the final, despite having been having been able. absolutely walloped by them in the group stages, then we can. And they did. And I just think she was absolutely fundamental to that team's success. And she was just a brilliant coach.

Yeah, ahead of her time. Indeed, Karen Smithies was the World Cup winning captain then. We're still at this day, draft 12 years away from 2005, where the ICC after that World Cup took over the running of the game. And I guess that's when you can begin to chart the first sort of seeds of professionalism. But in terms of amateur players being as professional as they can be, Ruth Priddo sounds like she had a big role to play in instilling that in this group of players and those around them. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that was, yeah, it was a really

kind of important step towards professionalism, towards having a more professional approach to cricket and actually having a really focused build up to this tournament. And it's showed the value of it because there were certainly some within the women's cricket association who very much questioned her methods and raised eyebrows. And, you know, I think sort of amateurism within women's cricket, or certainly within English women's cricket, died hard a bit. And there were people going, do we really need them to be eating vegetables rather than fish and chips? And are we really bothered about like doing things like juggling and, you know, as for standing up and saying, we will win, what a load of nonsense. And Ruth Prudeau persisted nonetheless. And so even

though, you know, the England players were a team of amateurs, strictly speaking, you know, people like Carol Hodges, who took that hat trick, she was a bank clerk. Jan Britton was working for British Airways. We said that Karen Smilley's, the captain, was working at a bookmakers. There were a couple of van drivers in the team. So you've got all of these kind of eclectic careers, eclectic jobs that they were doing outside of cricket, but they were all really, as well, very, very focused and really putting in the hours to, um, to to make this win happen. And so finally, what impact do you think it had England in 1993 lifting the trophy

on a BBC mainstream television programme? Was it a flash in the pan? Or do you think that did help to lay a foundation for the rise that we would see, albeit many, many years on? I think that, unfortunately, any kind of recognition about sort of legacy and impact, has to be tempered by the fact that it almost bankrupted the WCA hosting this tournament. So they did have that £90,000 grant, but they were still very much reaching into their own pockets

and having to fundraise to stage the tournament. And they couldn't then afford to host any further home internationals for another three years. So it was the summer of 1996 before any of those, for example, the thousands of fans at Lords could then go and actually attend another women's international in person. So that was very unfortunate. And I think that that sort of tempered the impact that this win could have. You're in the newspapers and people are celebrating you.

But if they can't see you again, then that's limiting, unfortunately. You know, I do think that it had an impact. One of the things that's interesting is to think about who was in the stands that day. Claire Taylor was in the stands, who obviously then went on to have this brilliant career herself for England and helped them win a T20 World Cup in 2009. We should point out the other Claire Taylor

who played and won the World Cup in 1993 is Claire Taylor the bowler. Yes. Rather than the batty you're referring to. Absolutely. So yeah, so Claire Taylor, the batter. So it was certainly influential for her and I'm sure that there are other stories like that

of people having seen that match and then going on to be inspired to play cricket as a result. And I do think that, as I said, I think that the kind of methods that Ruth Priddo adopted, the fact that England won a World Cup on the back of those was influential in sports psychology being taken a bit more seriously. And then obviously now it's, you know, you couldn't imagine international level cricket without that psychological element. It's such an important part. And so I think that, yeah, Ruth Priddo was ahead of her time and that that's some of the legacy of this tournament.

Ralph Nicholson, thank you for being with us. Well, that's it for this episode of the TMS podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you get a notification every time we upload. Also, check out the rest of the Women's World Cup podcasts we've done, as they're available on the TMS feed right now, as is the latest episode of No Balls with Kate Cross and Alex Hartley. And while you're on BBC Sounds, search for BBC Stumps while you're there. Thanks for listening. Speak to you next time.

Bye-bye. Welcome to The Team Behind the Team, a new podcast series in partnership with the Open University, where we'll be showcasing the people, the tools and the techniques that help athletes and teams reach elite level. Like all elite sports, it's a pyramid and everybody's trying to get to the top. It's not just my vision. It's a shared vision amongst the team. What is this? This is not the way I see the game. The team behind the team with Katie Smith. In partnership with the Open University.

Listen on BBC Sound