Women at the Wicket
By ROBERT HUDSON
DURING the past week many thousands of people have been introduced through the medium of television to the novel spectacle of women playing cricket. The occasion was no light-hearted affair, but a real Test Match—England v. Australia—played on the revered turf of Kennington Oval. - As one of the commentators on the match, I thus found myself in the unenviable position of having to break the news as gently as possible to a scattered army of husbands and brothers that women could no longer be regarded merely as unwilling providers of slow under-arm lobs to be driven mercilessly into the sea dur- ing the summer holidays. I fancy that the sight, of Molly Hide hitting strongly through the covers, Betty Wilson bowling beauti- fully controlled spinners, or of Lorna Larter (whose name might surely be a passport to Hollywood) keeping -wicket with the exuberant efficiency of a Godfrey Evans, must have given them anxious food for thought.
In fact, women have been playing cricket for over two hundred years. The first recorded match took place at Gosden Common, near Guildford, in 1745, between " eleven maids of Bramley and eleven maids of Hambleton dressed all in white, the Bramley maids with blue ribbons and the Hambleton maids with red ribbons on their heads. : . ." For the record, the red ribbons won the day by eight runs. Occasional matches—many of them styled " Married v. Single "—took place during thesnext century, but there appeared to be -little enthusiasm. The year 1820, how- ever, as Miss Nancy Joy reminds us in Maiden Over, her admir- able and pioneering history of -women's -cricket, was a date not without significance. • In that year My. John Wiles prevailed upon his sister Christina to bowl him some practice balls in the barn of his -home at Tonford, near Canterbuiy. Dutifully, and no doubt with the hopeless resignation of many sisters before and since, she proceeded to do so—" with a high-handed action " (I quote Miss Joy) " that avoided entanglement in the voluminous skirts of the period." Her brother promptly introduced the new form of bowling in a match between M.C.C, and Kent at Lords, and on being no-balled, jumped on his horse and rode away, declaring that he would never play again ' • nor did he, though in due course his sister's masterly invention became the recognised form of bowling.
The formation, of the White Heather Club, the oldest women's cricket club still in existence, heralded a period ofsountry-house cricket in the eighteen-nineties in which the ladies were allowed to play a modest part, prior to taking the floor in the ball-room in the evening. This period' also produced the first recorded match in Australia, when in May, 1886; two teams dressed rather surprisingly in " cardinal and blue " and " black and gold ' cos- tumes met on the Sydney cricket ground. In England occasional cricket for women continued, but it was not until 1926 that a start was made to build up a recognised association. In that year a few enthusiasts—among them Miss Marjorie Pollard, a well knOwn hockey international and a fellow-commentator at the Oval—met in the village of Colwall in Worcestershire to play cricket. They not only played, but also decided to form the Women's Cricket Association; which in twenty-five years (includ- ing the 1939-45 war) has grown at a remarkable rate. It now contains nearly three hundred affiliated clubs and schools, or- ganised by counties, which are in turn grouped in five territorial associations. A county, to be recognised as such, and to possess a county eleven, must have at least three affiliated clubs within its borders. Inter-territorial matches are played, and the Eng- land XI picked as a result. English teams have twice visited Australia, and this is the second visit of an Australian team to this country.
As we watched at the Oval, we tried to bring to life some of the trim and unfamiliar figures flitting about the television screen in their regulation divided skirts- and three-quarter length Stock- ings. What did these ladies do when they were not playing cricket? The answer in the main, as far as the English team is concerned, is that they teach—usually games, sometimes physical training. There are, of course, exceptions ; Grace Morgan, for instance, leaves her office at the Ministry of National Insurance in order to keep the English wicket—which she does with appropriate efficiency ; Hazel Sanders, who appeared to be contemplating an early suicide about three yards from the bat, was taking time off from a pathological laboratOry. But princi- pally it is the. classroom and the " gym " which claim our women cricketers, and no doubt many an anxious pupil prayed for a century from Miss Robinson or five wickets from Miss Duggan.
Molly Dive, the Australian captain, herself a graduate of Sydney University, leads a team of far more diverse talents— without a teacher among them. Here we find ledger-machinists, packers, clerks, stenographers and photographers. Myrtle Crad- dock, the star spin bowler, is a lock-assembler ; Mary Allitt,,an obdurate opening batswoman, helps her father to train horses ; and Norma Whiteman, whose fielding was a great pleasure to watch, is an assistant in a sports' shop. Romance does not appear to flourish in cricket pavilions, none of the Test Match players on either `side being , married.
There . are—for women's cricket=some minor but sensible variations in the rules. The ball weighs five ounces, which is half an ounce lighter than that used in men's cricket ; the lunch and tea intervals. are lengthend by twenty and ten minutes respec- tively, leaving a maximum playing-time of five and a half hours in a day—and a' little more time for gossip and analytical discussion.
What of the technical competence of the leading Women cricketers? Many watchers were no doubt surprised by their standard of skill, and indeed, as long as they are not compared with men and not made to play against them, they can survive a microscopic investigation of their cricketing technique. Their batting is sound and bears evidence of good coaching, but one misses the straight driving still occasionally, seen in county cricket. Most of the runs come from cuts and defleotions—and from heavy punishment of the loose bail on the leg side. The bowlers are steady, and the faster ones can move the ball in the air, but the spin bowlers do not seem able to spin the ball appreciably, although Miss Marjorie Pollard disagreed with me on this point when we were on the air. The googly is, as far as I could see, unknown. Fielding-is undoubtedly their strong suit ; both ground fielding and catching are excellent, and some of the throwing, particularly of the Australians Valerie Batty and Norma Whiteman, is remarkable. First bounce to the wicket- keeper from the Vauxhall end at the Oval is no mean throw. The faster women bowlers are slightly above men's medium pace, and, when women play against men, faster bowling than this is liable to cause severe trouble, not through lack of skill but through lack of practice against it. Similarly, a high-class slow spin bowler, equipped with a googly, would probably run through a women's side. But, as I said above, comparison with men's cricket is unfair and unwanted, least of all by the Women's Cricket Association.
The Oval Test Match resulted in a win for England by 137. But the result was really immaterial, as the " Ashes of women's cricket " were in any event bound to remain in Australia. How- ever, the memory of Molly Hide's courageous batting with an injured heel will remain with us, as will the fine bowling of Mary Duggan and Betty Wilson. As the players came off the field at the end of the game, we felt that they must surely soon be promoted from the practice wickets at Lords to the glory of the middle " itself—or perhaps to a special " Lords " of their own, with a Mother Time brooding benevolently over the scene from the heights of the grandstand.
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