The big changes in women’s cricket may just be the right ones

And it works – a crowd of 2,328 flock to the match, including a contingent of tweenage girls in pink cowboy hats: the biggest standalone women’s crowd of the season.

Somerset captain Sophie Luff remembers the night as a big club win – despite the fact that they lost to Surrey by eight wickets. “We were sitting in the changing rooms afterwards, and I said to the girls, ‘The result is irrelevant tonight, the amount of people that we’ve entertained through that game is amazing, and whether they’re here for us or whether they’re here as a Swiftie, they were engrossed in that cricket’.”

Last winter, the old regional women’s teams morphed into counties, following a competitive bidding process whereby eight first-class counties won the right to host a new women’s side, each receiving £1.5m of funding from the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The concern was always that counties might talk a good talk, take the money, and bin off any promises made in their winning bids. But as the first season concludes today with the Metro Bank One-Day Cup final between Hampshire and Lancashire in Southampton, the players seem largely content at their new county homes.

That includes Hampshire skipper Georgia Adams, previously captain of the successful Southern Vipers side who won five trophies in five years. “At first I was really against the change,” she says. “We were just starting to reap the rewards of the regional structure. It does feel a little bit like in the women’s game that every time something takes off, we stop and change.

“And as someone who’s grown up through the Sussex pathway, I never in a million years thought I would become Hampshire captain. If you’d told me that 10 years ago, I’d have laughed – ‘No way!’

“But very quickly into the Vipers journey, the more time we spent down here in Southampton, the vibe and the positive energy around this place is quite infectious.

“It never feels like there’s a hierarchy here.”

She cites an example from the start of the season, when Hampshire men’s head coach Adrian Birrell sent headshots of the women’s squad to the men. “He said, ‘I want you all to learn every woman player’s name, so when you see them, you’re polite and respectful and you say hello’.”

Personally, I’ve visited every of the eight Tier One home grounds this season, and raised an eyebrow at some of the counties’ claims to be providing an equal match day experience for their women’s and men’s teams. At Edgbaston, as the women’s portion of a T20 double-header gets under way, the many food and drink stalls are firmly shuttered and I struggle to find anywhere open to buy a coffee. On a Friday night at The Oval for a standalone Blast fixture between Surrey and Warwickshire, there is no sign of club mascot Caesar the Lion – usually such a hit with young fans. Perhaps he is in Hove with the men’s team, enjoying a swim in the sea and an ice cream.

Then there is the Women’s Vitality Blast scorecard which I’m handed at Old Trafford, which – embarrassingly – has the wrong points system printed at the top. Someone appears to have unsuspectingly copied and pasted the rules from the men’s competition.

“When you set up something new, there’s always going to be some teething issues,” says Luff. At Somerset, that meant the men getting used to sharing. “It wasn’t their fault – they’re used to training every morning and being done by one o’clock. We had all the afternoon slots. But the club did quickly address it – we found a way to make it work and a bit more fair.”

For Somerset-born Luff, the fact that she gets to call Taunton home for the first time in her professional career made up for any initial awkwardness. “As Western Storm, we were incredibly nomadic,” she says. “The real difference for me is when you can drive into the ground and you’re greeted by similar stewards day in, day out, and then you walk in and you’ve got your own changing room with your own locker. You feel part of the club.”

Interestingly, that applies equally to the one women’s team who have done things differently. The Blaze are now the women’s “half” of Nottinghamshire, but uniquely maintained their regional moniker.

“I love what we’ve created,” says captain Kirstie Gordon. “Having our own badge on our own kit, but still feeling connected to the guys, has worked really well for us. When we’re playing or when we’re training, the staff will go between Notts kit and Blaze kit.” When I visit Trent Bridge in May, mascot Nuts the Squirrel is proudly sporting an orange Blaze shirt and green Nottinghamshire trousers.

“It’s a concerted effort to put that kit on because it’s different, and that’s actually made us feel more supported by the club,” says Gordon.

Whoever wins today, there is a sense of relief that after a decade of upheaval this latest iteration of women’s domestic cricket looks like it is here to stay.

Photograph by Harry Trump/Getty Images