Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

58 1973 World Cup exposure for the women’s game, following Rachael Heyhoe Flint’s trail- blazing games against men’s teams round and about, though it meant that the England team was split up between games. Enid travelled on her own in her Ford Anglia with her England blazer on the back seat, and at one point got pulled up for not having a tax disc, ‘so I assumed that one of my offspring had fiddled with it and it had gone down into the heating vent’. She was told to produce her papers at a police station within three days, but ‘I said that I had to be playing cricket and would not be able to do that’. Happily the blazer seemed to be enough evidence for that. Remarkably enough, the disc was subsequently spotted by a policeman on a car parked in Newstead. Competition games were to be 60 overs a side, as was the current standard for the men’s game, and the campaign proper started with a win for England against the International XI. Under the heading ‘Impressive win for England XI’, the Guardian said ‘Enid Bakewell and Lynne Thomas both scored centuries and made 248 for the first wicket as England scored 258 for one in their allotted 60 overs. Mrs Bakewell scored 101 not out (six fours) and Miss Thomas 134.’ So Enid made a century in her first one-day international as she had in her first Test. The partnership was at the time a record for all women’s international cricket. That was June 23, and the next match was not until July 7 when England played Jamaica at Bradford in a game reduced to 49 overs a side. England batted, Enid made 32 and was run out but Lynne Thomas made 70 and England scored 191 for seven. That was plenty: Jamaica ended at 128 for nine. Enid bowled seven overs for 28 runs. Interestingly, Lynne Thomas said: “I thought [Enid’s] calling and running between the wickets was good. I felt confident we would make it every time. I remember her telling me to call anything going through point and backward of point as I could see the angle better when facing, better than she could as the one backing up.” In fact, any look over Enid’s career – indeed through this book - actually shows that she was run out remarkably often, but that may mostly have been later on when perhaps she had slowed down a little. A week later they played New Zealand at Exmouth and rain spoilt the game. Torrential rain overnight and in the morning meant that play could not start until 3.15pm and the game was reduced to 35 overs a side. After New Zealand had scored 105 for seven (Enid six overs, one for 25), England, batting in poor light and drizzle, were 34 for one after 15 overs. The umpires ended play because some of the fielders did not have spikes and the outfield was not safe for them! Long before Duckworth and Lewis, the winner was simply the team with the faster run rate, so England lost, but there were no conspiracy theorists around to hint at a deliberate ploy. On July 18 England played Young England at Ilford. There was no thought of staying in one place or allocating teams to a particular venue, and they had now played at Bradford, Exmouth and Ilford. Indeed this was intentional, as it was supposed to spread the word about women’s cricket