Originally published in 2016

The United Nations list of World Heritage sites does not appear to include any cricket venues. If it did, there would be obvious candidates: Lord’s, the MCG, Newlands, perhaps Mumbai’s Brabourne stadium might immediately cross your mind. The Morrisons car park, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire might not.

Enid Bakewell has come to meet me here, but she’ll gladly engage any passer-by. She knows every inch of this town. She knows that the statue of Harold Larwood was relocated recently as part of a town-centre regeneration. Now he bowls to a bronze Bradman just between the library and the entrance to the new supermarket. Bill Voce, a little incongruously, crouches to field at silly mid off. After all, this display immortalises the series. If not bowling you’d have thought Voce might at least have been fielding on the leg (theory) side.

But Kirkby-in-Ashfield knows its cricket history; it remembers its famous cricketing sons and can claim 22 first-class players, including Larwood and Voce. But look a little harder and you’ll also find one of cricket’s greatest female players. Enid Bakewell has just been waiting for the rest world to discover her.

The club has linked up with Chance to Shine, the charity that tries to ensure cricket participation in state schools, but the chance to get Enid involved was too good to miss.

“She used to live at the bottom of the street where we lived,” Terry Barrett explains. “I grew up hearing about ‘Enid Bakewell used to play for England,’ and thinking, ‘but this woman only just lives down the road!’ It was great for the area, along with all the other cricket history we’ve got around here.”

When Enid tried to teach cricket in PE lessons in Nottinghamshire in the 1960s she was told by her (female) PE adviser “Ooooh no! That’s too unladylike!” Nowadays she helps out at Kirby Portland on a voluntary basis – she’s been teaching sport her whole adult life. But she’s aware of how she needs to adapt.

“It’s interesting, having watched this Twenty20, the way that [players] are improvising. It makes you think. There are some keen lasses, but it’s no good being traditional. If some kiddy has got talent and they’ve got an eye for the ball, you’ve got to build on that positively. It’s no use trying to play by the book or coach by the book. I mean, I was never coached how to bowl.”

Only twice during my time with Enid does she express anything approaching regret. On the 1968–69 tour of Australia she turned down a chance to go and visit the man who is still the most famous cricketer in Nottinghamshire. Harold Larwood had emigrated in 1950.

“We were told he was very shy, and I was exhausted from all my efforts playing, but I’ve always regretted not meeting him.”

The other uncertainty that Enid Bakewell confesses is her fear that she’s taken up bowls too soon. After all, with matches scheduled for MCC and the Redoubtables Club this season, her cricket career is far from over.

“I’m going to try to keep going until I’m 80, at least. I once saw a chap at Timperley captaining a side, standing at mid off, and he bowled an over. He was talking about all the lads he’d coached. And I thought, if I can do that when I’m 80, I’d feel very, very proud.”

Building a statue of Enid Bakewell would almost seem inappropriate. After all, in her life thus far, she has never remained still.