Jamaica and England presented strong teams for their January 1970 women’s cricket series, with both sides featuring experienced players and well-balanced combinations. England, led by captain Rachael Heyhoe, included several members with Test match exposure, while Jamaica’s line-up combined proven local performers with players who had previously represented the island. After a competitive opening encounter, the first two-day match at Sabina Park was expected to provide a clear indication of the quality and depth in both teams.

Published Friday, January 16, 1970

Good show by Kilowatts in opener

Jamaica, English team in first ‘test’ today

Gleaner Sports Reporter

INTERNATIONAL women’s cricket hit Jamaica with a bang yesterday as the West Indies Sportsman’s Knockout champions, Kilowatts, held the English women cricketers to a draw in their one-day game at Camp before some 700 enthusiastic spectators.
Today, things are expected to reach even greater heights as Jamaica take on the visitors in the first of three two-day Tests.
Play will begin at Sabina Park, the venue of this, the first Test and the third, at 11.30 a.m., with stumps at 5.30 p.m.
If the standard of play in yesterday’s match is any indication of what is to come in the tourists’ remaining five games, then there is quite a festival in store, as the women’s game yesterday, apart from being entertaining, contained all the aspects that make male players proud. For, in 238 minutes’ play, 279 runs were scored for 11 wickets, on an outfield which tended to be somewhat slow.
Today’s Test will be a big landmark in cricket for Jamaican women and, wanting to make it a great success, it was little wonder the selectors took quite some time naming their final eleven from the 15 they had previously announced.
The team named seems quite balanced, although many are of the firm opinion that the batting could have been a bit stronger.
The English women, who, according to Jamaica-born Warwickshire cricket coach and their manager, Derief Taylor, are a strong combination, would definitely thrill the Jamaican crowds.
Taylor said that most of his squad have been travelling since Monday and, while he was satisfied with the side’s performance yesterday, he was confident they would improve as the tour progressed.
The captain, Rachael Heyhoe, who scored an unbeaten 91 before declaring her team’s innings closed yesterday, and who along with Anne Sanders had arrived a couple hours ahead of the main touring party from Australia — where they were engaged in a six-week coaching scheme sponsored by Rothman’s Tobacco Company — was just as confident as Taylor that they would be popular with the local crowds.
The Jamaica team is Monica Taylor, Evelyn Bogle, Marlene Coombs, Angela Brown, Audrey McInnis, Vivalyn Latty, Arlene McCalla, Maria Lawrence, Yolande Geddes, Lesline Noble and Peggy Fairweather. The twelfth local woman is Pauline Coombs.
This team includes five players who represented Jamaica against Trinidad in that country in 1967: skipper and opening bat Monica Taylor; vice-captain and wicketkeeper McInnis; all-rounder Evelyn Bogle; middle-order batsman Geddes; and all-rounder Brown.
The English team, like the Jamaicans, have five players with Test match experience: skipper Rachael Heyhoe, who is expected to bat at No. 3 and has played in 16 Tests; all-rounder Sanders (10 Tests); vice-captain Lesley Clifford (nine Tests); Heather Dewdney (two Tests); and Jean Clarke (one Test). Dewdney is a middle-order bat and leg-spinner, while Clarke, besides being a hard-hitter, is a seam bowler.
The English team is Rachael Heyhoe, Lesley Clifford, Anne Sanders, Jean Clarke, Heather Dewdney, Pam Ferdinand, Isobel Crocker, Wendy Williams, Marilyn Reid, Alison Hall and Pat Sheringham. Lesley Judd is the emergency player.
Yesterday, the tourists gave a bit of what is to be expected of them, hitting up 161 for eight before declaring, with the captain setting the pattern in the run-getting. She then showed that her team came before anything else when she called a halt to the innings when nine short of her century. She played a very fine innings which lasted 150 minutes, hitting 11 fours.
Apart from herself, only a couple of the others settled in: Anne Sanders (16) and Pat Sheringham (18), as four players failed to score.
There were a few injuries yesterday. First, Sheringham had to retire because of a bleeding nose, while local girl Cecile Salmon, in going for a ball, fell and hit her face on the boundary stone. They took no further part in the match and are well now.
When Kilowatts batted, there was a feeling of low expectation around the ground as Geddes and Bogle walked to the wicket. But they soon had things under control before Geddes, after playing a good-looking stroke through mid-off for four, was caught at the wicket off Sanders, who took two wickets for 31 in 11 overs, as Kilowatts replied with 118 for three.
From then on, it was all Jamaica, as Bogle and Marlene Coombs set about the tourists’ bowling, putting on 59 for the second wicket with intelligent batting which gained them both places on the Jamaica team. Coombs hit 51 in 93 entertaining minutes in the middle without being dismissed, and Bogle 30 before she was run out.

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