Lara, Enid Bakewell Introduce in Hall of Fame

Enid Bakewell Google Image 

Google Image

The West Indies contingent turned out in force to see Brian Lara inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame, but it was England's Enid Bakewell, the women's inductee, who stole the show in Colombo, with charming anecdotes from her career and a dedication to the sport that still endures 33 years after retirement. Lara became the17th West Indies player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, while Bakewell is the third women's inductee, after team-mate and captain Rachel Heyhoe-Flint and Australian Belinda Clark.

Bakewell was an allrounder from 1968 to 1982, who in twelve Tests scored 1078 runs at 59.88 and took 50 wickets at 16.62. She is one of only five cricketers, male or female, to have hit a century and taken ten wickets in the same Test - a feat she achieved in her final match, against West Indies at Edgbaston. Now, at 71, she still turns out for the Redoubtables club side in Surrey, for whom she opens the bowling, but only because she helps keep the run rate down, she said.

Her glittering statistics have earned her a place among the greats of the women's game, but it was not the personal achievements that she remembered most fondly. "I wasn't interested in my own success," she said. "As long as we got a win and we were part of a very good team, that was the most important thing." The names sometimes eluded her, but her team-mates contributions to her own success were retold with vivid enthusiasm. "I couldn't have done it without our brilliant wicketkeeper," she said of Shirley Hodges, who made 13 stumpings and took three catches off Bakewell's left-arm spin. "A girl from Yorkshire, who opened the bowling, took three splendid catches to give me a hat trick in Australia," Bakewell said of Julia Greenwood.