by Arunabha Sengipta
When she was a kid, a policeman pulled up her and her friends for playing cricket on the streets. He noted down all their names, except hers—the only girl in the group.
When she asked why she was getting away, she was told gruffly by the bobby: “Girls don’t play cricket.”
The policeman did not take her seriously.
The girl, on the other hand, took the policeman even less seriously.
A few years down the line, Rachael Heyhoe toured Holland with the Young England side.
In 1961 she toured South Africa, making her Test debut. In the second Test she scored the then fastest fifty in women’s Tests.
In 1963 in The Oval Test against Australia, she sent beautifully timed stroke soaring over long-on. It was the first six in a women’s Test match. She herself dismissed it as a ‘hoick to leg’.
However, traditional cricket writers were rather loath to recognise that she was a sportsperson. The focus remained on girls playing the ‘Gentleman’s game’.
AA Thomson, for example, pounced on a short scampered single at Scarborough describing it as stealing a run like Cinderella. Spectacular romantic nonsense has always been a shroud over lack of substance in cricket writing.
In 1966, Heyhoe became the captain of the England side. She celebrated her captaincy debut with 113 and 59 not out against New Zealand. In between, in 1964, she played as a goalkeeper for the England hockey team. And yes, she was a single-figure handicap golfer, and played squash, along with hockey and golf, for Staffordshire.
Outside sports, she had already moved on from being a physical education teacher at Wolverhampton Grammar School. She was now a journalist, first for Wolverhampton Chronicle and then for Daily Telegraph.
Yes, she was versatile.
In 1971, she married Warwickshire cricketer Derrick Flint, becoming known as Rachael Heyhoe Flint.
Two years later, in 1973, she became the first skipper to lift the World Cup. When her side beat the Australians at Edgbaston, it was Princess Anne who handed her the trophy in front of a packed house. This was followed by a reception at 10 Downing Street hosted by Prime Minister Edward Heath.
Yet, when she led the England women against the Australians at Lord’s in 1976, it was quite an event for the members of the MCC to digest.
Brian Wijerane complained: “I was quite shocked when I saw the women playing. Cricket is a game where concentration is very important and women are the greatest distraction a man can have around.” And another member, Peter Curtis, said: “I was praying for rain. I couldn’t believe this would happen in my lifetime.”
In fact, if Middlesex had not been beaten by Lancashire in the Gillette Cup, Lord’s would not have been available for the ladies.
Reflect. This is 1976 we are talking about. Just 44 years ago. Not 150.
During the match, the players were allowed to use the dressing room and walk through the Long Room. But lady spectators still could not enter the pavilion. And of course, MCC did not allow women members.
Rachel Heyhoe Flint ended her career with 1594 runs in 22 Tests at 45.54 with 3 hundreds. It was then the highest tally of runs. In ODIs she made 643 runs at a staggering 58.45.
During her career, GD Martineau wrote the following in her honour
Heyhoe for cricket
The frolic and fun—that were cheered to high Heaven—
Of Miss Rachel Heyhoe’s not out thirty seven
She flirted with fortune, she courted disaster—
And never stopped laughing as runs came faster;
She struck a long sixer that staggered the bowler,
And only retired to make way for the roller—
So thanks, above all, for such joy at the wicket;
Sing Heyhoe for laughter, and Heyhoe for cricket!
Perhaps a kind of a Bring on the Girls chorus interlude before the start of the more serious theatre of men’s cricket.
However, when she teamed up with Netta Rheinberg to write Fair Play—the story of Women’s Cricket, Heyhoe Flint inserted the following, far more relevant, verse by Heather Wheatley:
The days of chivalry are past, as we are often told,
And ladies are no longer woo’d by knights in armour bold,
They like their menfolk modern, and they call their fancy free,
But there are no lady members of the MCC.
A husband has no more right to call his wife a slave,
The women wear the trousers now, and make the men behave,
They play lacrosse and hockey, and are powerful off the tee,
But there are no lady members of the MCC.
Parliament has ladies in both parties, Left and Right,
They do not like bad language, so the men must be polite,
They all have had a vote, indeed, since 1923,
But there are no lady members of the MCC.
Women play their cricket with both credit and renown,
They bat with skill and science and they bounce their bumpers down,
Their fielding is a pleasure, and as neat as it could be,
But there are no lady members of the MCC.
The day will come (or will it come?) —I hope that I’ll be there—
When Lord’s will see the ladies playing cricket on the square,
The faces in the Tavern are a sight that I must see
When the ladies win the toss against the MCC!
The day did arrive in 1998. And Heyhoe Flint did become the first woman to be elected to the MCC full committee in 2004. She had been the first to hit another six, this time sending the stuffy chauvinism of Long Room screaming out of Lord’s.
In 2010 she became the first female director of ECB, as well as a Conservative Party peer Baroness Rachael Heyhoe Flint. Her title without a hyphen broke the standing rule that peerage titles could only have one word. Even the likes of Lord Lloyd-George and Lord Lloyd-Webber had bowed down to that tradition.
Heyhoe Flint did not. The woman who could storm the citadel of patriarchy could dismiss a mere hyphen without breaking sweat.
Rachael Heyhoe Flint was born to storm bastions. On 11 June 1939.
Illustration: Maha