CHOLERIC old colonels may spray Pimms down their club ties as they splutter indignation at the MCC, that bastion of men-only membership, at last lifting its 211-year-old ban on the admission of women, but this catching up with the times in the heritage centre of cricket was long overdue.

It is not just the basic inequality that was wrong, but also the associated failure to recognise the contribution that women make and have made for decades to cricket across the country -- even if it is a role that is most often played in the kitchens of the pavilions.

Yet, where, too, would cricket be without the vast army of women supporters? As fans, they are no different from the male followers of the game.

And, no matter what acrimony the historic decision to admit women members to the MCC may have caused at the special meeting of the club, it would have been ludicrous, sexist and unjust for this ban to have continued beyond the new millennium.

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