Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

24 Grammar school Netherlands were bowled out for 70, Enid, on first change, taking five for 17 in eight overs. WCA were credited with a win on first innings but Netherlands went in again and at the close were 26 for nine, Enid having bowled 7-4-7-6. Oddly, the WCA’s report on the tour doesn’t mention the second innings, nor was it included in the statistics, though it now lives forever on Cricket Archive , taken from the original scorebook. But what it does say is ‘in the second game, the NDCB again faced the fast opening attack of Baker and Goodchild, but after seven overs, four of which were maidens, Turton was brought on to bowl slow left arm around the wicket. This was the answer: the batsmen were deceived by the flight and spin and induced to make mistakes, six of them being caught. Turton finished with five for 17 and NDCB were all out for 70.’ The 1959 Women’s Annual includes the averages for ‘Representative matches’ at The Oval, Crawley and Holland. Enid had only played in the Netherlands games and had not batted with any success (did not bat in the first, out for three in the second). Even without her second innings figures, she is shown top of the bowling figures with seven wickets for 30 (five for 17 and the two for 13 she took in the first game). On the return journey the sea was rougher – ‘appallingly rough’ according to Rachael Heyhoe Flint. Enid says: “Four people took boiled sweets and stayed on top and the rest of us were sick as parrots – they’d given us fish and chips before we went on board and that didn’t help.” It might not have been the best time for a breakthrough; there was no international cricket in 1960 and in 1960-61 there was a tour to South Africa which Enid could not have afforded either in time or money (£250 according to Rachael Heyhoe Flint, whose parents put off a new car to find her the money). But for now Enid had passed her A levels and was off to Dartford Training College. While still at school she became engaged to a Doug Bradshaw, but he went off to Australia and married someone else. She says that she probably got engaged to Colin Bakewell on the rebound! Colin’s chat-up line was: ‘When are you going to play for England, then?’ Colin was a neighbour and although he had ”passed” the eleven-plus his parents could not afford to send him to grammar school, so he had taken an apprenticeship with Rolls Royce and worked at Hucknall testing instruments (except when away on National Service with RAF Coastal Command). Colin played cricket and football for Rolls Royce. They were engaged almost immediately and Enid was warned by her PE teacher not to wear an engagement ring for her interview at Dartford.