Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

69 has had to stay at home with her family. The children were still small and the money was not there. Rachael Heyhoe Flint, playing rather surprisingly for the Possibles rather than the Probables as she was still at this point the latest England captain and had been for 11 years, made the highest score of the match with 47. That was July 19, and the party for the World Cup was announced on July 25, with Heyhoe Flint omitted altogether. The sacking of Rachael Heyhoe Flint as captain and then her omission from the tour party was unjustifiable on cricketing grounds (there was a feeble suggestion about encouraging youth, rather contradicted by the fact that the new captain was older than Rachael), massively controversial and sparked unrest even within the genteel circles of the WCA, with the Bulletin publishing several highly critical letters. There seemed to be a feeling in the inner circles of the WCA that Rachael Heyhoe Flint had got too big for her boots and possibly, given her high profile and the undeniable fact this she had brought more money into the game than anyone else, that this grammar school girl had got above herself and needed to be put in her place. Sarah Potter, writing in The Times in 1971, said: “Suggestions grew that her appetite for public relations was a veil for self-promotion.” Raf Nicholson suggests that ‘both the editors of Women’s Cricket and the WCA executive more broadly appear to have been consciously setting women’s cricket against modernity by the 1960s’. 18 As she suggests, this was one reason why the number playing women’s cricket declined steeply through the 1960s and 1970s. Enid was not directly involved as she had made herself unavailable for India. In this case the balancing of family life against cricket came down on the side of the family, and she also felt (following dreadful warnings from Mary Pilling) that she was not used to spicy food (how the East Midlands has changed since then!) and would not cope well in India (even though the WCA intended to send a doctor with them). When she had gone to Australia and New Zealand in 1968-69 her mother and father had looked after Lorna during the week, and Colin had looked after her at weekends, but they had felt the strain towards the end of a long tour. Since then Enid had had two more children: Lynne, named after team mate Lynne Thomas, and Robert. Enid’s mother had died from breast cancer in 1970. In September 1977 Enid took part in the WCA single wicket tournament (a form of the game briefly revived but now apparently disappeared again except in Ambridge), reaching the semi-final where she was beaten by Megan Lear. She was also leading one of the teams in Cricket Week, taking the family and camping. Her team won their first two games – the second by one run in a game in which Enid scored 46 and took five for 18 – but then the rain set in and there was very little cricket on the next three days, no games managing enough time to get a result. Play took place on the Saturday but the scores were not there for the September Bulletin and did not appear later. 18 Raf Nicholson, A history of women’s cricket in Britain, Part 2, 1956-1980 After ‘76