The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided that they will not use the term “batsman” going forward and would rather replace it with the term “batter” to make it gender-neutral for all.
Historically, the term batsman has been used in men’s cricket and batswoman has been used in women’s cricket, but many have been advocating against it, insisting that these terms are gender-specific and hence, discriminatory.
With increasing popularity of women’s cricket, there have been demands that terms by ICC should be gender-neutral
With women’s cricket getting popular as well now and being watched more than before in many parts of the world, it is believed that the governing body of the game should be using terms that have the same meaning for both the genders and not just one particular gender.
Recently, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) which is responsible for making laws in the game of cricket decided that they would use the term batter in all the laws that have been laid out by them for the game.
And now ICC, moving in the same direction, has also announced that going ahead in future, the term batter will be used in all the playing conditions related to the game. This move by ICC is likely to be welcomed by majority of cricket fans around the world.
According to Geoff Allardice who is operating as the Chief Executive Officer of ICC on an interim basis at the moment, the term batter is something that ICC has been using in its commentary and other stuff anyway, but now this term will also be used officially in all the written communications of ICC.
“The ICC has been utilising the term batter for some time now across our channels and in commentary, and we welcome the MCC’s decision to implement it into the Laws of Cricket and will follow suit with our playing conditions that are derived from the Laws,” Allardice insisted in a statement put out by the governing body of the game.
