Surrey County Cricket Club look ahead to International Women’s Day on Wednesday 8th March, 2023.
This Wednesday, Surrey will join many others around the world in celebrating International Women’s Day.
In anticipation of the day we will look back at the careers of 5 specific Surrey icons who now feature on a special mural by the Tenison Gate on the Harleyford Road side of the ground.
The display features players from all eras of women’s cricket at the Club, from the 1930’s to the present day.
Keep scrolling to learn more!
Molly Hide
One of the great pioneers of women’s cricket, Molly Hide captained England for 17 years.
Born in Shanghai daughter of a Surrey farmer, she was a member of the side which played the inaugural Test at Brisbane in November 1934. She made rapid progress, scoring a century against New Zealand at Christchurch while putting on 235 with Betty Snowball in a match won by an innings and 337 runs. Her sporting prowess also saw her play international lacrosse.
Hide took over the England captaincy in 1937 and would retain the role until her retirement in 1954, like so many cricketers losing a large chunk of her playing days to the Second World War. It did not appear to take the edge off her game, scoring five centuries on the 1948-49 Australian tour, an innings of 124no at Sydney being marked by having her portrait hung in the pavilion. Over 15 Tests in all, her 872 runs came at 36 and were augmented by 36 wickets at 15.
Following retirement, Hide undertook a stint as a national selector and became president of the Women’s Cricket Association. She died in 1995, aged 81.
Jan Brittin OBE
Born in Kingston and raised in Chessington, perhaps the only surprise about Jan Brittin was that she opened her career with a brief spell at Sussex before returning to her native county.
An athlete of remarkable all-round talent, she represented English Schools at athletics and then her country at indoor hockey and cricket both outdoors and indoors.
As an elegant and assured opener, Brittin scored 1,935 runs for England in 27 Tests between 1979-98 – including five centuries – and her ODI aggregate of 2,121 in 63 outings remained a record until Charlotte Edwards overtook it in 2003.
Brittin was a member of the England side who won the World Cup in 1993, a huge staging post for the women’s game. Her 48 was the top score of the match as New Zealand were beaten at Lord’s, taking an awkward catch to capture the final wicket of a tournament in which she had accrued 416 runs at 51. Having been on the losing side five years earlier at Melbourne, victory was all the sweeter.
Brittin remained heavily involved in the game after her retirement by coaching, enjoying spells as a teacher and also working for British Airways before her death from cancer in 2017, aged 58.
Ebony Rainford-Brent MBE
Determination to succeed was never more obvious than when Ebony Rainford-Brent conquered a back injury so serious that doctors advised her to give up playing sport.
It kept her out of cricket for two years – delaying her university studies – but the persistence of a player brought up in Herne Hill with three brothers soon became obvious. Honing her skills in the Surrey Academy and later captaining the county side, the all-rounder would play 22 ODIs and seven T20s for England, the first black woman to play for her country and a member of the side which won the 2009 World Cup.
Rainford-Brent’s influence has grown all the greater since she retired from playing. Having worked for Chance to Shine and the Lord’s Taverners, she became Surrey’s director of women’s cricket and spearheaded the ACE Programme – designed to encourage youngsters from underrepresented communities to take up the game.
Appointed MBE in 2021, she is a regular presence on television and radio in a burgeoning media career.
Nat Sciver-Brunt
The first England player to take a hat-trick in a T20 international, Nat Sciver-Brunt preferred football and tennis in her earliest years and, having been born in Tokyo, first played cricket while growing up in the Netherlands.
She has gone on to become one of the leading players of her generation, having appeared in eight Tests, 94 ODIs and 108 T20s so far and with the prospect of much more to come at the age of 30. Success for Surrey in the County Championship in 2012 and 2013 earned her international breakthrough and within months she had claimed her hat-trick, against New Zealand, the first English cricketer – female or male – to do so.
Sciver-Brunt soon became a key member of the national side’s middle-order, having scored more than 5,000 runs in all formats plus more than 100 wickets. At the recent World Cup in South Africa, she scored two half-centuries, including an unbeaten 81 against Pakistan in Cape Town.
A student at Epsom College and then Loughborough University, she has captained England on a number of occasions.
Sophia Dunkley
Born in Lambeth, Sophia Dunkley played her early cricket in Middlesex before heading back south of the river in 2020.
Already a founder member of the Surrey Stars side, her England breakthrough had come with selection for the T20 side in 2018 and she went on to become one of the first professional women players in the country.
There was no shortage of complications as she sought to establish her place in all formats of the game, caused by the break in activities caused by the pandemic and attendant ‘bubble’ regulations, but Dunkley relished her Test debut in 2021 by scoring 74 against India at Bristol.
In all, Dunkley has played 75 times for England in all formats and at 24 there should be much more to come for the Loughborough University graduate.
