Lives in Cricket No 49 - Enid Bakewell

88 Chapter Fifteen Enid in South Africa again In late 1985 Enid went with the Unicorns to South Africa again, but this time people noticed. In pure cricketing terms, the tour to South Africa included one remarkable performance from Enid. Against South Africa Women at Cape Town she took five for 63 in 37 overs as they made 212 for eight declared, and then made her highest score, 172 out of 375 for six declared, bowled another 14.3 overs to take two for 37, and was then 31 not out as Unicorns won by nine wickets. Enid said: “My opening partner was ill so Pam Groves, the captain, told me to go out and stay there. So I did until bowled by a peach of a ball.” If men’s cricket in South Africa was suffering from isolation, it was arguably more so for women’s cricket, though truthfully there had never been a great deal of interest in that contact before: a WCA team had toured in 1960-61 and no official South African team had ever toured England. The 1985 tour was in fact the fifth Unicorns tour, but the others had mostly slipped under the radar, though in 1983 a proposed WCA tour to the Caribbean had collapsed over the issue of women who had played in South Africa. The Protea Annual gives the South African view. According to this, five South Africans had been originally invited as part of the ‘International XI’ for the 1973 World Cup, but the invitations had been withdrawn due to ‘political pressure’. It goes on to say: … relief from isolation came in 1974 when the Southern Transvaal WCA invited Pamela Crain (England international and member of the 1960-61 touring side) to bring a team to South Africa to participate in the annual inter-provincial tournament and against provinces on their home grounds. The ‘Unicorns’ team was formed, filled with celebrities. Eleven of them had represented England and toured the West Indies, four had toured Australia and New Zealand and Jacki Wainwright was the England basketball captain. This visit was so successful – and having won the ‘Team of the Week’ trophy at the tournament held in Bloemfontein during the 1974-5 season it was proposed that they return to defend their title. The very next season 1975-6 they did return, seeing a new part of the country, East London, where the tournament was held. It seems extraordinary that 17 years after the D’Oliveira affair this could happen. The Commonwealth Heads of Government had issued the Gleneagles Agreement on apartheid sport at their summit in Scotland in June 1977. In South Africa there had been some moves with the setting up of SACU, a supposedly multi-racial cricketing organisation, but it was clearly seen as window-dressing. There had been no links since 1970 and would be none at official level: in 1979 Doug Insole, then an English