Cricket Australia has cleared Anaya Bangar to play competitive women’s cricket. An August 20 letter from Jacqui Partridge, CA’s head of integrity, makes her eligible for premier cricket in any state or territory now, with her full determination commencing in March 2027 — a route into the WBBL. Eligibility is conditional on a blood test on arrival confirming her serum testosterone stays below 10 nanomoles per litre.

The governance question matters more to the industry than the individual case. The ICC has ruled against transgender participation in the international women’s game, but national boards set their own domestic policy, and Cricket Australia has now used that latitude. The BCCI, by Bangar’s account, has yet to respond to her at all. South Africa’s Marizanne Kapp called the decision ridiculous on Instagram; Bangar told critics to educate themselves.

cricexec takes no position on the underlying debate. In the vlog below, founder and publisher Zee Zaidi walks through the letter, its conditions, the reaction, and where the fault lines now sit.

Transcript

Zee Zaidi:

Should transgender athletes be allowed to play women’s cricket? That’s a hot question today because Cricket Australia just approved Anaya Bangar’s pathway to play cricket in Australia, and there’s a lot of fuss about it. I’m Zee Zaidi, friends. I am founder and publisher of cricexec, the leading publication on the business of cricket worldwide.

The story of Anaya Bangar. Anaya was born Aryan Bangar, son at the time of Sanjay Bangar, the former India international and coach. And Aryan in 2022 started transitioning genders. Now, what just happened, which got a lot of press, is that Cricket Australia, which she had sent a letter to and applied to to play, has allowed her, with a couple of nuances and provisions, to play competitive cricket in Australia as a woman. She received a letter dated August 20 addressed to her from Jacqui Partridge, who’s head of integrity of Cricket Australia, basically saying that, “Based on the medical information provided and taking into account when you commence testosterone suppression treatment and your definitive surgery, we confirm that your eligibility determination to commence in March 2027, next March. In the meantime, as previously advised, you are eligible to participate in premier cricket competitions in any state or territory of Australia.”

So the bottom line is Anaya Bangar can play competitive cricket as a woman in Cricket Australia, and this is a route to actually play competitively in the WBBL, the Women’s Big Bash League. She’s actually eligible from March 2027 onwards. This path is open to her. And again, back when she was Aryan Bangar, played youth cricket in the Mumbai Cricket Association youth level, so has been a competitive cricketer. Obviously, this has caused a lot of controversy and a lot of attention.

Anaya was very happy when this came out, when this news came out, obviously, and said to the Bombay Times, I’m gonna quote, “I am now eligible to play in the WBBL in Australia from March 2027 onwards. For me, this is incredibly emotional because there was a point when I genuinely believed I had lost cricket forever. Cricket has been such a fundamental part of my identity since childhood, and having to step away from the sport after my transition was one of the hardest things I experienced. So this isn’t simply about being included in a women’s league. It represents the possibility of returning to the sport I deeply love.”

Now, we should note that in 2025, last year, when she was lobbying to be able to play, that there was support that she received from human rights advocates, but there was also opposition. Obviously, a lot of hate from social media, but also opposition from the cricket world. What the Cricket Australia decision says is that her eligibility is conditional upon providing a blood test upon, quote, “Your arrival in Australia, confirming that your serum testosterone concentration remains below 10 nanomoles per liter and that you continue to satisfy the policy’s eligibility requirements.” So that position is basically right now you meet the hormone tests, but you have to continue to do so in order to play.

So Anaya is very happy, and like I said, had faced a lot of opposition, is facing new opposition to this. She goes on to point out how the BCCI didn’t respond. She said, quote, “After I published my athlete testing report and everything else, BCCI stayed quiet about it, whereas Cricket Australia actually read my report,” the one that Manchester Metropolitan University did with her last year, “went through all my medical history, and had a proper team assessing my case. I approached Cricket Australia, and they gave me clearance to play in terms of fairness and inclusivity. They asked for my blood test report and testosterone report. They asked for the papers for the surgeries that I’ve done. They asked for my Manchester University report, which I published over a year ago. If everything goes well and I perform, then I have a chance to play in the BBL.” But she goes on, “When it comes to the ICC, they have said no to it. BCCI is yet to decide what can be done in such cases. As this is the 1st time such a case has come up, the board is yet to take a standard, especially on allowing transgender players in domestic cricket.”

So this debate is gonna continue. Soon after this announcement was made, the famous and successful South African cricketer, Marizanne Kapp, the all-rounder, responded strongly on Instagram. She shared an Instagram story with a picture of Anaya saying, “Absolutely ridiculous. This should not be allowed.” To which Anaya replied, quote, “I think people who want to raise their voice against it should actually educate themselves on this topic, and I’ve already provided the necessary information in terms of not having any unfair advantage and also complying with the guidelines set by Cricket Australia.” Quote, “If anyone’s personal opinion is in that sort of way, I hope they go and educate themselves,” she said with a shrug. And she said basically now, quote, “The next role is to go there and play club cricket and prove myself by my performances, and if I do well, I hopefully might have a chance to be picked for the women’s BBL.”

The other thing Anaya has said, and this goes to the debate that we’re gonna talk about, is that she, after transitioning- Feels weaker and not as physically capable as she did back when she was a male, or identified as a male. And she says, describing the physical changes to her capability, quote, “I could feel my energy levels being stable all the time as a man, and I was definitely much stronger. Now my heart feels weaker, my bones are weaker, and my muscle strength has gone down. And that’s difficult for an athlete. The downside of it is that even if I wanted to, I just cannot face bowling at 140 kilometers per hour.”

And at the core of it, this is the debate. This is a debate that’s gonna go on over the Anaya issue and beyond, because the two sides are very polarized and there’s no one to say that one side is right conclusively, one side is wrong conclusively. There are clearly arguments on both sides. Anaya’s argument and the argument of the advocates and champions of transgender athletes playing in women’s sport is that, one, there’s a human rights angle according to them, but also that with medical science, you can prove that gender-affirming therapy will cause a transgender athlete who has undergone male puberty to actually display the hormonal profile of a woman athlete, and therefore they are not advantaged. There is no advantage to them relative to women.

Of course, those on the other side of the debate say that’s absolutely not true, that once you undergo male puberty, you have an indefinite lifelong advantage. And you’ve seen this debate actually pop up in other sports. The most famous one in America, as many remember, from 2022, actually 4 years ago, was a transgender athlete named Lia Thomas, who swam for the University of Pennsylvania, who began hormone replacement therapy in 2019, and swimming and competing as a woman in 2022. She absolutely blew away the competition to the point that all competitors against her were in tears. And so the argument there is it’s just never possible for a woman who was born biologically a woman to compete against transgender women who had been male, who had undergone male puberty. And so, you know, this debate is gonna continue. At the same time, because sports are trying to be inclusive, you’re always gonna have policy boundaries that are drawn at various points in the spectrum.

The other context in which this is coming up today in a very big way is the WNBA, where some of you may have heard 2 former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, have declared, these are males, have declared for the 2027 WNBA draft, saying they identify as women. Now, the WNBA is pushing back, saying they’re mocking the WNBA as a league and trying to turn people against one another. But the athletes are claiming that this is a move as a protest against gender policies and rules regarding inclusion in women’s sports. So as you can see, it’s not just cricket. It is other sports that are facing and continuing to face this debate.

Cricket has some clarity in that the ICC has made its ruling, but national governing boards such as Cricket Australia are free to take different positions for their domestic competitions, and they’ve done that. And it wouldn’t surprise me if other national boards do the same. And yet, we don’t see the ICC position changing anytime soon.

We’re not gonna take a position on this because the reality is there are strong arguments on both sides. If anything, this is for societies to wrestle with. The ICC has taken its position, but the issue of, gender rights or transgender rights is something that different ICC member nations are gonna have different views on, and within societies, this debate’s gonna continue. In the US, it’s a big political hot topic. The Trump administration has taken a strong view against transgender athletes competing but they’re not alone, and it’s not an issue that is divided along partisan lines. There are people across the political spectrum who share perspectives on this.

So the one thing we know for sure is that this debate is not gonna end in cricket. The Anaya Banger saga is going to continue, and there are probably gonna be others as well. And we at cricexec are gonna continue to cover it and continue to keep you posted and informed. If you want to learn more about the issues facing the cricket world, make sure to hit the subscribe button or check us out on cricexec.com, where you can subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletters going straight to your inbox, just like the leaders of the cricket world get, and keep yourself informed.