A reader takes issue with one of this week's columns, and (below) the editor of Wisden.com replies by Dianne van Dulken
Saturday, November 10, 2001

OK, do share. Was your Women's Page just an excuse to shove pictures of females in bikinis all over your site? Because I really cannot see any other reason for having it there.

I know you know that women play cricket. I know you know that it has a long and glorious tradition. And, really, it wasn't as if there wasn't anything else to talk about this month, was it?

Let's see, offhand I can think of the Rani Jhansi Trophy, the Kiwi tour of India being pulled without the team being consulted, and the start of the Australian domestic season. And that is without bothering to look anything up.

And the best you can manage is "Trophy wives can be bitchy".

Bravo! You've sunk to a new low.

Please, for the sake of all female cricket followers out there, and for all followers of women's cricket, stop this page, unless you are going to treat both groups with respect.

Dianne van Dulken is an e-commerce analyst working in Australia.

Tim de Lisle replies
Thanks for your mail. We admired your eloquence even though we were sorry to have given such displeasure.

However, we stand by the piece. It came in because the author had something to say - and because we had a Women's Page. We published it because it took the reader inside a part of the professional cricket world which is seldom reported. Our Women's Page editor, who is female, was as keen to publish it as I was.

The Women's Page, which has been running for two years, does not just deal with women's cricket. The brief is to cover women's issues as well, and women in the men's game. The idea sprang from the same impulse as our successful campaign in 1998 to persuade MCC members to lift their ban on women: a desire to cover subjects that often get neglected in a male-dominated field, to recognise that cricket has female fans too, to appeal to them and engage with them. The page appears weekly, so the decision to publish this piece has not stopped us covering other stories this month.

Choosing the picture was the last thing we did. As such, it can hardly have been the spur for the piece. I accept your point that the picture was not as appropriate as it might have been. Our choices were limited by legal considerations - we couldn't use a picture in which any actual cricketer's wife could be identified, so we went for a generic shot.

Publishing a piece which attacks a narrow group of people does not constitute a lack of respect for women, any more than an article attacking a few males constitutes a lack of respect for men. To have spiked this piece on the grounds that it criticised some women would have been patronising, as well as unjournalistic.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com.

Punter's Point is the weekly column that is written by a Wisden reader. It should be an opinion piece of up to 500 words on the subject of your choice, topical or otherwise. Please send it to feedback@wisden.com, giving your phone numbers and a postal address. The best piece to arrive by 4pm Friday (BST) will be published on Wisden.com the next day. Wisden reserves the right to edit the pieces.

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