Is domestic red-ball cricket the logical next step for women's game?

Grace Ballinger, The Blaze's left-arm seam bowler and a Hundred title-winner with the Northern Superchargers last season, uses her first column for BBC Sport to ask if it is time for domestic women's cricket to expand into the longer format of the game?

The 2026 season will welcome in a new era for women's cricket in England.

Following years of increasing professionalisation, nine domestic teams will now be entirely composed of professional players for the first time.

In 2019, there were fewer than 20 professional female cricketers; fast forward to now and there are over 135 professional domestic players and 22 centrally-contracted players.

In the midst of this evolution, the England women's team has received plenty of scrutiny, most notoriously following their whitewash defeat at the hands of Australia in the 2024-25 Ashes series, which included a rare Test match.

Much like their male counterparts whose latest Ashes defeat in Australia was confirmed on Sunday, their ability in the longest format of cricket - widely regarded as the 'purest' form of the sport - has been challenged.

However, multi-day or red-ball cricket is entirely omitted from the women's domestic calendar. Professional domestic teams exclusively play the shorter, white-ball formats.

One may question how a team is meant to succeed, further even be selected, when the format is never played.

Multi-day cricket, mostly played with a red ball and occasionally with a pink ball, inevitably requires a different skillset to short-format cricket.

The red ball swings more, generating more movement in the air for bowlers.

It can also be shined, in comparison to the white ball which cannot, and quickly deteriorates.

Multi-day cricket requires execution of skills over a much longer period of time, bringing in a heightened necessity for fitness, focus and discipline.

It is played consistently throughout the men's domestic summer, with all 18 men's counties competing in the County Championship divisions.

However, as a female professional cricketer, unless playing in international fixtures, you will be unlikely to pick up any ball other than the white one.

Personally, as an opening bowler whose main skills are swinging the ball and consistency, it is easy to feel as though the longest format of cricket could be the one that I am best suited to.

The idea of playing red-ball cricket is one that appeals not only to myself, but to many of my team-mates.

With no multi-day cricket being played in the women's domestic sphere, the only avenue to compete in this format is by playing Test cricket for England.

How one may go about proving their ability and therefore getting selected to play Test cricket becomes very difficult when there is simply no red-ball cricket for women to play.

While Test cricket is still sparse in the women's international calendar, England have still played at least one Test annually in recent years.

Selecting an international team in a format that domestic cricketers do not play seems not only difficult, but illogical.

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There are some rationalities behind women currently playing only white-ball formats at domestic level.

This summer will be the first where squads are composed of entirely full-time athletes.

Previously, some domestic cricketers would be balancing their cricketing commitments with another job.

It would therefore be difficult for these players to be available for fixtures that can last up to four days, instead of just one.

Women's cricket equally cannot compete with the squad depth of men's county outfits, especially those of successful teams such as Surrey and Nottinghamshire, where some players are signed exclusively to play the longer format.

A full County Championship-like season would currently cause injury to many female cricketers, with teams not having the ability to rotate squads like the men's counties can afford to.

Finally, one could ask if it makes sense to introduce a multi-day format to the women's domestic game in a world where white-ball and franchise cricket is dominant.

White-ball cricket is what attracts crowds at county level, while County Championship fixtures usually leave more seats empty than full.

Is there enough appetite for women's multi-day cricket in England, and should this impact its introduction?

'Logical next step'

The question surrounding red-ball cricket in the women's domestic game remains largely unanswered.

It is easy to feel that the talent of female county cricketers is being done a disservice during a rapid period of development for the game.

It has previously been very difficult - probably impossible - for a multi-day women's County Championship to occur, but with increasing professionalisation surely comes increasing scope for the red-ball game to grow.

How this could look is open to debate, and a full championship would be hard to implement immediately.

That being said, some form of introduction to longer-format cricket seems like a logical step for English cricket.

A possible idea could be a 'North vs South' selected multi-day series, allowing the best domestic players to compete in a red-ball series and put their name in the hat for Test selection.

It is also worth noting that female county academies have been playing multi-day cricket for the past three years, with two three-day fixtures per team already in the calendar for 2026.

Perhaps this signposts a commitment to multi-day women's cricket in the future, but does not answer for present professionals.

A big year for English women's cricket is on the horizon; a home T20 World Cup is coming in the summer, shortly followed by a historical first women's Test match at Lord's in July.

With viewing records expected to be broken, following the record attendance of 23,000 at an English female Test match in 2023, is now the time to invest in the red-ball future of English women's cricket?