Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

104 11 players for their last three games. In the Southern Premier Champions League Redoubtables came second to Invicta. In the Club Knockout Redoubtables beat Kent Invicta in the semi-final after Invicta were held to 112 for eight (Enid 10-4-18-2) and Redoubtables made 116 for four (Enid making three), but were well beaten by Wakefield in the final. Redoubtables made 109, Enid making 11, and Wakefield 111 for two (Enid 7-1-19-0). The first Wicket Women of 1996 notes the highly promising debut of the 16-year-old Charlotte Edwards – ‘Edwards has it in her to cope and become an England great’. The same edition notes that Sandie Lister, the England hockey captain, was training with England’s indoor squad. In August 1996 Enid was coaching the England under-21 side that had won every game in the European under-23 cup. From 1997, though Enid was now playing at a lower level, scores are much easier to find. She may have been refusing to accept that she was getting older, being run out at least five times this year. Indeed she did not make many runs, with what looks like a top score of 20, but she was still taking wickets. In a four day match at Wellingborough in May, in the second innings she bowled 23 overs, 19 of them maidens, and took three for 19 as ‘A Elder’s XI’ managed 34 for eight in 59 overs to draw the game. She had a solid game for Surrey seconds against Yorkshire seconds, taking three for 11 in ten overs and top scoring – but with 16 – and her team lost by nine runs. She took two for 27 against Wakefield after being run out for nought in the quarter-final stage of the knockout as Redoubtables lost. And she took four for 39 against Sussex Seconds. Then came the major news that it had been agreed that following negotiation the WCA would come under the umbrella of the ECB. It was a massive change that would lead to great things for the players at the top of the women’s game, though the grassroots situation remains cloudy to this day. The final AGM for the free-standing WCA, in a last bid to hold back the tide, decided that club sides must wear culottes, not trousers (the England team had by now switched to trousers and this particular last ditch effort meant little); the merger with the ECB was being negotiated. The summer edition contained the news that it had gone through: voted at an EGM on 29 March. The WCA was no longer an independent body. In April 1998 the under-21 side went to South Africa – Jane Morris was manager but Enid was on the trip as coach. This was successful – the side played as guests in the inter-provincial tournament and won it, then played South Africa under-21 twice, winning one and losing one. Enid remembers this one: In 1998 I definitely went to South Africa – Bloemfontein (I am certain of date as I still have a cricket shirt with the date on). In the Autumn 1998 edition of Wicket Women Enid wrote up the under-21 home season. Home for the 1998 season, and Redoubtables reached the quarter-finals of 1990s