![]() #Flint obituaries series#The three Tests in that series were all drawn, but when Rachael Heyhoe took the team on to New Zealand, England ended a long sequence of draws with two victories.īy this time Rachel Heyhoe had become something of a public figure. Soon, though, she was working indefatigably to secure funds for a cricket tour of Australia in 1968-69. These appearances led to a coaching job in the US, where she found her pupils more at home with ice hockey than with what they described as the field version of the game.īack in Britain Rachael Heyhoe lost her place in the England hockey team to her friend Hazell Feltwell. Subsequently she was in the England team which beat Holland at Manchester. In 1964 she was selected to play for England, first against Wales in Swansea, and then, on a muddy Wembley pitch, in front of 60,000 screaming schoolgirls, against Scotland at Wembley. Now Rachael Heyhoe’s hockey career blossomed. Later that summer she was appointed England captain for two games against New Zealand, and celebrated at Scarborough by scoring her first Test century. On her own description it was “an inelegant 'hoick’ at a straight ball which landed out in cow-pasture country at long-on”. The tour, she considered, was the most enjoyable of her career, though she did not greatly distinguish herself in the Tests, apart from a half-century at Johannesburg.Īgainst Australia at the Oval in 1963, Rachael Heyhoe became the first woman ever to hit a six in a Test match. ![]() While finding apartheid “strange and sad”, Rachael Heyhoe took the view that it was not the place of English people to criticise. On leaving Dartford in 1960, she took a job teaching PE at Wolverhampton Municipal School, only to have her career interrupted that winter by the WCA’s tour of South Africa. In 1958 Rachael Heyhoe found herself invited by the Women’s Cricket Association to join a tour of Holland. ![]() She went on to Dartford College of Physical Education, where Mary Duggan, the captain of the England women’s cricket team, was a member of staff. Meanwhile she was developing into an excellent goalkeeper at hockey, selected for the Midlands reserve team at 17. Eventually the boys had to announce that the cricket season was over, although it was only June.Ĭricket soon caught on at her school, where Rachael hit her first century for a team which contained two other future England players, Jackie Elledge and Ann Jago.Īt 16 Rachael played her first county match, for Staffordshire against Warwickshire. When, however, she was finally allowed an innings, she batted for three days, accumulating a score of 380 not out. Up to that time there had been little cricket at her school, while at home her brother Nicholas, four years older, excluded her from the games which he and his friends played in the garden. ![]() In the process Rachael Heyhoe Flint discovered a talent for organisation and public speaking which would bear fruit in charitable and fundraising work long after her cricketing days were over. Her co-option of the millionaire Jack Hayward into the cause in 1970, together with her own energy and administrative zeal, made possible a World Cup for women cricketers in 1973, two years before the men arranged such an event. Since women’s cricket is largely self-financing, Rachael Heyhoe Flint worked tirelessly to raise money for tours and tournaments. Above all, though, her zest and enthusiasm, both during and after her playing career, helped to raise women’s cricket to a higher level, alike on the pitch and in the public consciousness. In 22 Tests between 19 she scored 1,594 runs at an average of 45.54 and as captain of England between 19 she never lost a match. ![]() Baroness Heyhoe Flint, better known as Rachael Heyhoe Flint, who has died aged 77, brought a new zest and prestige to women’s cricket in England. ![]()
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