The golden age of men’s cricket came to an end in the summer of 1914, but it unexpectedly marked the beginning of women’s mass adoption of the national game. As women entered the factories, depots and hospitals of wartime England, few anticipated they would also enter the cricket field. Despite hostile opposition and humble beginnings, by 1939 the sport had been transformed. International tours, first-class county venues, crowds in their thousands: women’s cricket became a permanent feature of the English summer. Women at the Wicket is the first in-depth study of the formative years of the game and explains how cricket was a new setting for women’s emancipation after achieving electoral equality in 1928. With a foreword from Alison Mitchell.