cricket

Boynton had this fascinating link to an image of Myrtle Foster batting. A feature of this image was the unusual bat.
The Worcestershire Women's Cricket site has a brief history of woman's cricket and this following image.

It seems Woman's Cricket, along with slaughtering some of the local fauna, was quite popular in some parts of Britain among the leisured classes.
From the middle 18th century there are constant press references to women's matches, most of them played, like their male equivalents, in Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey villages. Records also exist for several matches held in Sussex around this time, these were often between rival villages, or teams of married and single women. The winner's prize for such a match might be a barrel of ale or eleven pairs of lace gloves, such games could lure crowds of 2,000 plus and betting on the result was rife.