The eligibility of trans women to compete in elite domestic cricket has once again come under scrutiny following Anaya Bangar’s announcement that she plans to pursue an elite pathway in Australia.
Bangar occupies a unique position in the debate. She played age-group cricket in India alongside several future stars of men’s international cricket, including Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sarfaraz Khan. Her father, Sanjay Bangar, played 12 Tests for India and later became batting coach of the national team. She also has more than one million followers on Instagram – five times that of England captain Nat Sciver-Brunt – where she has documented her transition and pursuit of competitive cricket according to her gender identity.
Beyond the human story, Bangar’s case exposes the inconsistencies in transgender participation policies across cricket’s national governing bodies.
“I think there should be thorough assessments, there should be proper teams set up with scientists who study this issue to a level which Cricket Australia has,” Bangar told Wisden’s The Scoop.
“It’s been happening all over the world and since the BCCI has stayed quiet about this, it’s about time their policies are put in place. In their rule book, there’s no such thing as a trans woman or a trans man, are allowed to play and not allowed to play. It’s a grey area, so that’s what we could start off with.”
The BCCI currently has no publicly established policy governing transgender participation in women’s domestic cricket. When Bangar wrote to the board seeking clarity on her position as a trans woman, she says she received no response.
That contrasts sharply with Cricket Australia, a country in which Bangar has never played domestic cricket, but where she is now eligible to participate in Premier Cricket competitions. CA’s policy on the inclusion of transgender players in elite cricket takes a case-by-case approach. It states that “players will be eligible to participate in the category of elite cricket consistent with their gender identity, whether or not this accords with the sex they were assigned at birth.”
This is subject to a determination from an expert panel, who will consider, among other factors, levels of testosterone in a player’s serum during the preceding 12 month period, as well as the results of any pre or post transition monitoring and supporting documentation provided by the player relevant to strength, stamina or physique.
In Bangar’s case, she provided CA with an Athlete Testing Report from research she participated in at Manchester Metropolitan University, examining the effects of four weeks of sprint interval training on transgender health.
“I’ve always stood for case-by-case inclusion because, again, I believe in fairness and dignity of women’s sport, and I wouldn’t want to just get into that knowing I have an unfair advantage,” Bangar said. “I’ve got scientific backing in my case. This isn’t just coming from personal opinions or feelings.”
But the use of research studies as evidence in individual eligibility cases is disputed. Alun Williams, professor of sport and exercise genomics at Manchester Metropolitan University, who wasn’t involved in the specific programme Bangar participated in, told Wisden.com that these reports are “certainly not intended for wider use”.
“If I was a governing body and trying to take this seriously and intending to base decisions on measurements, then to be honest, I wouldn't take any other organisation's word for it in terms of those measurements being valid,” he says .
For governing bodies who base their gender eligibility criteria on a case-by-case basis, they must consider two things. First, whether trans athletes who have undergone gender affirming treatment retain inherent physical advantages over cis women. And second, whether any retained physical advantages are ‘unfair’.
Cricket Australia, who declined to comment publicly on the policy, place a high importance on testosterone levels, requiring levels below 10 nmol/L continuously for at least 12 months before submitting an application. But testosterone itself is a disputed measure of whether a trans woman retains physical advantages associated with male puberty.
“Typical male values are above 10, maybe 10-30 as a typical male range,” Williams said. “Whereas typical female values are lower than that. I haven’t got them in front of me, but maybe 0.5 to 2.5 or something of that order. So lowering to less than 10 is probably a lowering of the person you’re referring to, but it still sounds like it’s significantly above the typical female range.
“I think the more important point is actually not what the levels are when someone changes them through medication – gender affirming hormone treatment. Doing that after puberty is too late for addressing the physical performance differences between men and women… Assuming that somebody goes through puberty as a male before taking any kind of hormonal treatment, then the beneficial effect for physical performance of going through puberty as a male exists.”
Cricket occupies a complicated position when it comes to gender eligibility criteria. In contact, strength-based sports like rugby and boxing, the physical performance question is one of safety. As a primarily skill-based sport, cricket is different.
Men and women regularly play alongside each other at recreational level, showing that physical differences are not salient at baseline when taking individual skill into account. At elite level, the safety question becomes whether a bowler who has undergone a male puberty can bowl significantly faster than a cis woman, and therefore pose a threat to a batter’s safety. The competitive advantage question is harder to measure. Governing bodies must determine whether the physical advantages retained after hormonal treatment are so vast that they outweigh the importance of skill and the principle of inclusion.
“Personally, I think the strongest argument is not to try to argue that the difference in size and strength doesn't matter, in many sports it does,” Williams said. “I think the best argument has to be that despite those physical differences that exist before testosterone suppression and still exist to some extent after, it's just the right thing to do. If people think that inclusion and identity of people is really important, then they need to make that argument.”
The complexity of the science should not obscure the right trans athletes have to clarity. The ICC has a blanket ban on any player who has undergone male puberty competing in international women’s cricket. But it leaves eligibility for domestic professional and grassroots cricket to individual national governing bodies.
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Following a UK Supreme Court ruling last year, the ECB announced an immediate ban on transgender women participating in women’s and girls’ cricket. The BCCI has no publicly available policy governing transgender participation in domestic cricket, and did not respond when approached for comment. Neither does Cricket South Africa, although the South African government’s Women in Sports Policy Framework urges sporting bodies to “consider a human rights agenda and fair and equitable participation at all levels in recognition of scientific evidence regarding transgender athletes.”
Cricket Australia is therefore an outlier, not only in allowing a pathway for trans women to compete in elite domestic cricket, but in having a detailed policy governing how those cases are assessed at all.
It’s significant in Bangar’s case, that she has strong connections at the heart of Indian cricket, but will pursue her ambitions of professional cricket in Australia, a country in which she has not previously played in domestic competitions. Of any Indian trans woman seeking clarity on where they can play their cricket, she’s probably the best placed to seek answers.
Importantly, Bangar has not yet been cleared to play in the WBBL, which could come in March next year, and after that assessment she will have to make her way through the Australian domestic system like any other athlete. She doesn’t represent a wave of trans players queuing up to enter the women’s game, but her case exposes the narrow and ever closing avenues available to trans cricketers. Right now, for any trans women seeking to play elite cricket, Australia is their only option.
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