Melissa Story: From BBC Commentary to Twitter Death Threats and the Future of Women’s Cricket

Rising star in cricket broadcasting and commentary, Melissa Story shared the challenges and opportunities she has experienced in her short time in the industry in an unfiltered interview.

The 22-year-old shared her ‘deep end’ dive into the BBC covering Southern Vipers and Hampshire while studying at university.

‘’I was quite fortunate with the way things began.’’ Story began.

‘’I’m friends with Charlotte Taylor and Emily Windsor and both had a go on local BBC Radio Solent. The rule they have there is if it’s a women’s game then they need a women’s voice because they may just know a bit more and have that insight on the game more than the men.

‘’When they got called up to the Southern Vipers side, I had a message from Emily and Charlotte that they need someone to do it and said I should, and I can’t shut up anyway!

‘’Kevan James who has been my big help really, just said, I’m just going to throw you in the deep end with ball-by-ball commentary because that’s the only way to do it.’’

Story’s career has seen highs and lows, but her time commentating on the infamous Deepti Sharma run-out of Charlie Dean brought about something she hadn’t ever experienced.

‘’I tweeted something, not my opinion but something I spotted: a young boy outside the stadium practicing how to do the run-out at the non-strikers end and I said that was funny, what a strange end to the summer it’s been, then I was receiving death threats.

‘’One person sent me four or five of my tweets just zoomed in on my nose and pictures from my Instagram just telling me how big it was which I was like ‘how has this come from such an innocent tweet’ and people literally wanting you to die from a tweet.’’

Speaking on the troubles faced inside the industry she highlighted: ‘’Some of the first things I was told and not in a bad way and change who you are but I was warned was, you have to keep your voice low, you can’t be screechy, can’t giggle you have to keep your voice low and it felt strange.

‘’Another bit of advice as a warning I got was, you’re always going to be held to people above you, your co-commentators sat next to you, especially when I’m covering the county game and you have a more traditional audience, I almost feel like I have to do better than my co-commentators and I need to prove my worth.’’

Despite being a full-time student, Story has experienced her fair share of criticism as she mentioned how social media allows people to not hold back.

‘’People don’t hesitate in looking past the fact you’re a person and seeing you as a profile. You get plenty of messages as a female commentator or broadcaster.’’ She explained.

‘’If you post a picture of yourself, it’s attention seeking or it’s asking for compliments from men on twitter which I can assure no one wants. You also get people messaging your professional account which you’re trying to build a career off, asking you out or trying to flirt with you when I’m just trying to post stats on the game and you’re putting pick up lines in my DM’s.’’

Story was quickly fast-tracked into commentating on more games after James took a liking to her unique voice in the commentary box. She then found herself with a challenge after receiving her biggest opportunity yet.

‘’I got the call up for my first international game on the last game of the summer when one of the commentators was ill I had less than 24-hours’ notice and drive to Canterbury in the middle of the petrol crisis and I said ‘If my car breaks down, I’ll walk the rest of the way’ I was that keen to be on it!

‘’I think that these policies to get a female voice in is really good. As a listener you don’t want the same voices, particularly on the radio although it’s nice to sometimes have it in the background you don’t want it becoming too monotone and from a personal perspective, I’ve always liked hearing that diversity in the commentary.

‘’I’m quite a strong believer that women’s cricket needs male commentators and men’s cricket needs female commentators just because it’s nice to hear the different perspective on the sport and the tactics so I definitely benefited from radio Solent’s rule of having a female voice.

‘’I know a few more counties on their BBC coverage and their live streams are getting more and more female commentators with this ‘third voice’ policy and that has helped but overwhelmingly it is, particularly in the county coverage, older white men.’’ Story exclaimed passionately in the defence of newer, younger voices to get opportunities on radio.

As well as being a key vocal point for the growth of female broadcasters, Story also has strong beliefs for how the women’s game should have more equality.

‘‘We’ve seen the ECB announce more central contracts and it changes a life, it’s a woman who can give up a part-time job and with that the standard keeps going up so any news story that comes out, I will shout to the hills about because it’s these steps albeit small steps that will progress from there.

‘‘It makes me happy that in most debates about the hundred that when people criticise the hundred there’s often that confirmation, they’re not criticising the women’s competition because it’s done nothing but good for the women’s game.

‘’I think the biggest danger across men’s and women’s [cricket] but speaking particularly for women’s is the rise of the private T20 leagues. South Africa batter Lizelle Lee had some issues with the South African cricket board regarding fitness which then led to a story leaking saying it was about her weight not her fitness, now she’s retired from international cricket.

‘‘I think if you’re an England, India, Australia, New Zealand player you are fine getting that support from your country’s board and central contracts and domestic contracts that’s fantastic and that’ll only go onto to make for professionalism and managed schedules whereas I think the other countries you have South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan where they aren’t receiving backing from their central authorities, it’ll see those latter countries get left behind.’’

Story closed out following this with her say on how the next few months will be a big indicator for the future of women’s cricket: ‘’ I think the biggest telling sign will be the Under-19 women’s world cup in February because that will show the differences between the countries who spend time and invest in their younger players and those who don’t.’’