by Tanya Aldred
Thursday, October 25, 2001

Trust men to hog the limelight. As different members of the England squad in turn froth at the mouth in anticipation of curry and soldiers, another sports team are quietly making their own decisions about how to spend the winter. For Nasser Hussain's men are not the only ones with a tour of India in their diaries.

England's women cricketers are due there for a one-day series in early January, to be played at Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune, and not a whimper of discontent has yet been heard.

The squad meet this weekend for one of their monthly winter training sessions. Gill McConway, the ECB's director for women's cricket, will talk the players through the trip. They will be offered the same help and advice as the men. The same talks from the Foreign Office, the same ECB hand-holding reassurances about security and the same opt-out clause -- withdraw with your head held high.

The women don't have to make their minds up yet. The line-up will only be whittled down from 18 to 14 at the end of November and the team don't fly till the New Year -- and by then it could be Happy Christmas, War is over.

Before that, New Zealand's women will have toured India. They are due to arrive in late November and as yet there has been no running for the white flag. The girls could yet teach the boys a thing or two.

Of course the women's decision is different. Terrorists tend to blow up well-known targets, and with all respect to Clare Connor's team and the New Zealanders, their faces aren't plastered on billboards all over the country like Sachin Tendulkar's. They don't represent western imperialism in quite the same way as the English men's cricket team. And, despite equal opportunities, a women's match would surely be too soft a target for the average gung-ho young zealot.

Representatives of the England and Indian women's boards have actually been talking, which is rather more productive than the air of silence that was strictly maintained between the ECB and BCCI for much of the autumn. Channels will remain open, players will talk to one another. Expect the tour to go ahead, unless the situation worsens dramatically.

Tanya Aldred is assistant editor of Wisden.com. The Women's Page appears every Thursday.

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