Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

74 Chapter Eleven 1982 World Cup Or the Hansell Vita Fresh Women’s World Cup, to give it its full name, was now to be played in New Zealand. So the notion of a Women’s World Cup was now established. From the start, since most women’s cricket is a one- day game, it was the most important event in women’s cricket at a time when the men’s event was still a sideshow. It was arranged so that teams moved around New Zealand, but would usually play two World Cup games and a warm-up at each venue. This made it a highly compressed tournament with England (including warm-up games), playing 17 games in less than a month, and more than once playing on three consecutive days. There were only five teams and everybody would play everybody else three times. It was Australia, England, New Zealand, India and an International XI (a replacement for Jamaica who had not been able to make it). South Africa by this time was quite beyond the pale. The air route this time was by way of Iceland, Greenland, Los Angeles and Tahiti, so still a distinctly long journey. On the plane they watched Chariots of Fire, Zorro, and Arthur. Proper serious recognition was still a way off, with the press not wanting to seem too serious about this. On December 20, 1981 Julie Welch, one of the first women sportswriters, had written a piece in the Observer under the headline ‘Bulldog Breed Pay their Way’ . It starts: Just after the New Year 14 players, three officials, and Winston Grit, the jolly bulldog, their mascot, will fly out from Heathrow to New Zealand for the 1982 Women’s cricket World Cup. Hunter Davies wrote in the Times (‘Hunter Davies joins England women cricketers in drinks and jollity’, it says, unable to take them quite seriously). He mentions that they had just had pregnancy tests and ‘they all thought The 1982 World Cup logo.