Conducted with a highly promising bunch who would go on to win a national youth cup it was a simple little fielding drill with anyone dropping a catch heading to the bottom of the class, but I realised one of their number was giving me the full glare.

Foolishly my first instinct was to think I might have hit one a bit too hard at the only girl in the group, so eased off for the next couple before realising that the analysis was 100 per cent wrong.

By the time we finished, with the ball being hit harder her way than to any of the rest, she was still top of the class, while I like to think my own lesson was properly absorbed in terms of casual sexism. I have most certainly never made the mistake in the interim of ever treating Kari Carswell, or Anderson as she was then, any differently to any other clubmate at Stirling County.

A teenager then who was the only girl I knew playing the sport at senior level in this part of the world she has done more than anyone to promote women's cricket in Scotland, but her antennae has remained acutely attuned.

When, then, during football's Women's World Cup and just ahead of our clash in a match to celebrate 200 years of cricket in Brechin, involving several of her Scottish Wildcats - the women's international team - she issued a tweet registering some irritation at some of the coverage, it prompted a chat.

The source of her annoyance was, it transpired, the way male journalists were drawing comparison with the men's game rather than assessing the quality of the fare in its own right which I found, for the most part, at least as entertaining as most men's tournaments at least partly because, rather than in spite of, it being played on artificial surfaces which is a whole other subject for another day.

It could be argued that there is a contradiction at play on her behalf, on the one hand seeking to be treated equally and on the other looking for females sportspeople to be viewed differently, but to my mind Kari, the modern-day sports administrator - working as she does for Cricket Scotland - was as right as Kari the teenager was all those years ago.

Mostly, particularly in team sports, women must compete separately and the power differential means performance must be analysed differently, albeit there are certain sports at which, to whatever level, women can and choose to compete in the same teams as men and when that happens they are entitled to no favours on account of gender.

Last time I saw her, a few days after that Brechin encounter, Kari was waiting to go into bat for the Stirling County first XL in their Western Union meeting with Greenock, while watching her husband open the batting with her brother, surely a unique occurrence in the history of the sport and again the subject of casual sexism was broached.

"It happens all the time," she said with a wry smile.

"Even in the team meeting today..."

And that was before the FA pitched in with this week's stunningly ill-judged attempt to tweet a tribute by way of welcoming England's footballers home by pronouncing that: "Our Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title - heroes."

As we frequently encounter when it comes to issues relating to race, religion and age as well as gender it can be a tricky business when adjustments in thought processes are required within entrenched cultures.

However they need to be made, which brings us to this month's principal project, covering the gowf.

Next week sees the R&A host an Open Championship on their own patch for the first time since they finally salved their corporate conscience when it comes to institutionalised sexism, but this week we are in a part of the world where it remains enshrined.

It goes without saying, of course, which the organisation that calls itself the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, but might also be considered the Disreputable Conglomeration of Capitalist Recalcitrants, boasts ownership of hallowed turf, such is Muirfield's reputation.

However with the argument long debunked that attitudes within a private club which harbours unacceptable attitudes are irrelevant to it being allowed to stage an international event which projects a global image of this part of the world, this week's observations of Marc Warren, who is poised to establish himself as Scotland's highest ranked player, carry additional weight.

"From what I've seen, they are pretty much on a par," he said when I invited him to compare Gullane with Muirfield, going on to say that while the Open venue is "world-renowned" the two are of "a similar standard."

Just as the R&A's previous defence of chauvinism was inexcusable so, such views seems to confirm, they no longer have an excuse for continuing to stage Opens at Muirfield if that club remains locked in the past while it has a neighbour that can just as easily stage golf's greatest competition.

In terms that will be understood in the most staid of clubhouses may I politely suggest that it is time, one way or another, for the Open Championship to move on.