Because female people don’t matter.

Six first-class counties are demanding urgent answers from the England and Wales Cricket Board as to why a middle-aged player who transitioned from a man to a woman is being allowed to compete against girls as young as 12.

A two-fer. Not just a man, but middle-aged. Not just decades older, but male.

One letter from a coach claims the player “hits the ball harder than any other I have seen in the league”.

Gee I wonder what could possibly explain that.

It is understood that the player has previously caused injuries, although inadvertently, including one to an umpire and another to an opponent at county trials who was left unable to play for months. Some parents, disturbed at the significant inequalities of power between young girls and an adult who was born male, have threatened to remove their daughters from their league in response.

Or, and hear me out here – he could get out. Instead of forcing the girls out, the middle-aged man could get out instead. Call me crazy but I think that’s a fairer way to deal.

The worries raised by the case have become so acute that a group of six first-class counties met the ECB last week to insist on immediate clarification of the governing body’s transgender policy. All argue that they have been left without any clear guidance on the issue of girls’ physical safety.

As it stands, the ECB’s rules around transgender players in recreational cricket are among the most liberal in sport, decreeing that “trans women may compete in any female-only competition, league or match and should be accepted in the gender in which they present.” 

“Liberal” not as in progressive or liberty-respecting but as in generous to the point of lunacy. How “liberal” is it really to give one player massive advantages that both endanger all the other players and give him an unearned edge? It’s not so much liberal as just plain cheating.

[T[here is a view among the counties that the ECB is obfuscating and prevaricating on the subject. One county said that it had been pressing for concrete changes to the transgender policy for three years, only to be referred after last week’s meeting to literature from Stonewall, the LGBT charity advising organisations on pronouns and gender-neutral spaces.

Stonewall is happy to look on while girls are trampled to death. Stonewall is not the answer here.