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The Lord's-based Marylebone Cricket Club, the sole authority on
the laws of the game since it was founded in 1787, last month
made the change in the Laws of Cricket to stress the importance
of the women's game.
"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," said ICC acting CEO Geoff Allardice.
"This is a natural and perhaps overdue evolution of our sport
and now our batters are gender-neutral in the same way as
bowlers, fielders and wicket keepers!
"It's a small change, but one that I hope will have significant
impact on cricket being viewed as a more inclusive sport."
The preliminary round matches of the men's T20 World Cup will
start on Oct. 17 in United Arab Emirates and Oman.
England won the 2017 women's World Cup final in front of a
capacity crowd at Lord's while the women's World T20 final
between Australia and India in 2020 attracted more than 80,000
to the Melbourne Cricket Ground in increasing signs of
popularity of the women's game.
Women's cricket will also feature at the Commonwealth Games for
the first time in 2022 in Birmingham, England.
"Why not take a small step to ensuring we're a sport that
doesn't exclude 50% of the world's population with outdated
language choices," Allardice said.
"Whilst some may have made lots of noise against this
common-sense change, the majority of people within the game have
welcomed the move."
(Reporting by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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