Emma Lamb says women’s cricket is no longer just about results. It is about what the young girls watching from the boundary believe is possible.
Lamb, England’s opening batter and the 2025 PCA Women’s Player of the Year, said the biggest change in the women’s game is not the cricket itself. It is the pathway that now exists for the next generation.
“For me it’s more than just the cricket. Obviously the cricket’s amazing but it’s seeing the youngsters sat on the side and actually really letting them believe that it is a possibility for them to come and do this in however many years it would be. It’s like there’s a real pathway for them now. That probably wasn’t there when I was growing up.”
Emma Lamb, YouTube interview, 2026
Lamb grew up in Preston as the only girl at her high school who wanted to play cricket. There were no professional contracts for women. No domestic structure. No World Cup on home soil to attend as a child. She joined Lancashire’s youth ranks at 10 and made her senior debut at 14, but the idea of making a career out of cricket did not exist for girls in the mid-2000s.
The Pathway That Changed Everything
Insider Read:
When Lamb talks about a pathway that was not there, she is describing something that changes how a young player’s brain works. A 10-year-old girl watching cricket today sees Emma Lamb open the batting for Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred. She sees England play a T20 World Cup at Lord’s. She sees over 180 professional domestic contracts. That girl is not dreaming. She is planning. That is the difference. When there is no visible endpoint, talent becomes a hobby. When there is a clear structure from age-group cricket to regional contracts to international caps, talent becomes a career. Lamb lived through both versions. She knows what it is like to play without knowing where it leads. The girls watching her now do not have that problem.
The numbers confirm what Lamb sees from the field. Girls’ cricket teams in England have grown from 2,176 to 2,772 in a single year. Clubs with a girls’ section rose from 888 to 1,102. The ECB is targeting 500,000 women and girls playing cricket in 2026. England hosted the T20 World Cup this summer, with record crowds at Lord’s and the Oval proving the audience is real.
Lamb was the first woman to play in the Cheshire County Premier League. She was mistaken for the scorer at men’s club matches. She lost her England contract and earned it back through sheer domestic runs. The pathway she describes is not theoretical to her. She built part of it herself.
Sources:
Emma Lamb, YouTube interview, 2026
Also Read:
