Cricket Victoria honour for former Australian captain Miriam Knee
When Miriam Knee was first selected to play cricket for Australia, she had to pay for her own blazer. And almost 50 years since leading the country into the first women’s World Cup, it’s still a good fit. Here’s her remarkable story.
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She began playing cricket as a schoolgirl, when Croydon, thick with orchards, was considered a country area.
Teacher Mr Collis from Yarra Road Primary School encouraged Miriam Knee in the sport and Mrs Cartwright from Lilydale Elementary School introduced it to the curriculum on Friday afternoons.
It led to her joining a local club, YWCA.
Years later, as captain of Australia, Knee led the national team into the 1973 women’s World Cup. The first women’s World Cup was staged two years before the first men’s event.
“Well that was a great thrill to play in the World Cup,’’ Knee, now 82, was saying last Friday.
She used the same words to describe her receipt of life membership of Cricket Victoria at the recent AGM.
“A great thrill for me and more importantly for the people around me,’’ she said.
Knee has called Tennyson, NSW home for a long time and as the years pile up she’s glad she hasn’t been forgotten in her home state.
She still loves cricket – she has some neat descriptions for the batting of Ellyse Perry – but would like to see the women playing more Test matches and testing their ability to build an innings and plan wickets.
It’s a vastly different game to the one she began playing as a schoolgirl.
But she said the standard of women’s cricket as she was coming through was strong and the players had a well-run, matting-on-concrete competition in the old Victorian Women’s Cricket Association.
Still, there was no money in the game.
Knee had to play to pay, and she remembers the fundraising that went on to take part in overseas tours. She even had to fish into her own pocket for her Australian blazer.
There was no ceremony or pomp about it being presented to her ahead of her first appearance for Australia. She was fitted for it and got a call from the tailor to say it was ready to collect.
Knee considers herself fortunate to have come under the guidance of Mr Collis and Mrs Cartwright at school, the YWCA club and the coaching of Nell McLarty, who had represented Australia in the 1930s.
When a back injury forced her into retirement, McLarty took to coaching girls and women, and had an immense influence on a succession of players.
Knee said that when the Test squad went to England in 1963, six of its Victorian contingent had been schooled in batting and bowling by McLarty.
“I was fortunate she took me under her wing,’’ she said.
“One year after her coaching me I happened to get into the interstate team to play Queensland. Things just went on from there.’’
That was in 1958-59. A right-arm medium-pace bowler and left-hand batter, she rose to national selection in 1961 for the tour to New Zealand. In the only Test, at Dunedin, she took two wickets in both innings of a drawn match.
A tour to England for three Tests came in 1963, the visitors travelling by ship for six weeks.
In the first Test, at Birmingham, she captured 4-49 off 25.4 overs.
Knee dominated the second match, at Scarborough, with 5-36 off 23 overs in the first innings, a knock of 82 (run out) and 3-22 off 29 overs in the second dig. She collected another four wickets in the third Test.
In 1968-69 Knee played three more Tests against England, highlighted by an innings of 96 at Melbourne.
Her last Test was in February, 1972 against New Zealand, when she was captain. Knee’s numbers mark her out as a fine performer: 35 wickets at 16.28 and 319 runs at 26.58.
The 1973 World Cup, staged in the UK, was a highlight of her career.
It was contested by England, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, a Young England and an international team.
Under Knee’s captaincy the Australians played six matches and finished runners-up to England.
“It was different, limited overs cricket, a wonderful experience, because we went via Jamaica, and we had a Test there, which is what some people call the ‘missing Test’, because it doesn’t appear in official records,’’ Knee said.
“We went on to England. It was a very good series, the World Cup. They ran it extremely well, and of course it was all new. It’s turned into quite a big thing, the one-day game, hasn’t it?’’
Knee had played international cricket through her ability and also the generosity of her boss, Jim McKenna, who allowed her to take time off at Croydon newsagency. The women’s cricket community also performed various fundraisers to help send her and other players away.
“All the way through money was holding people back,’’ she said. “I think some players would probably have never been seen. Unless you paid your own way you never got a chance. You had to do paper drives, collect bottles, have card nights and all that style of thing to raise money.’’
It was all worth it when the time came to put on the blazer.
“We revered the blazer,’’ she said. “The baggy green has come out as a symbol in later years but I think I’m safe in saying the Australian girls loved the blazer. When you put it on you just felt wonderful.’’
And she was a wonderful cricketer, as former England captain Rachael Heyhoe Flint and Netta Rheinberg wrote in Fair Play, The Story of Women’s Cricket.
“She figures among the best all-round Test cricketers in Australia,’’ they wrote.
Knee saw out her playing days at the Mitcham club, and was later a state selector.
After work took her to NSW she was also an Australian selector and served as a coach. She’s proud to say four players she coached played for Australia – and each made a century.
Knee has a high regard for the skills of today’s players, particularly Perry, but she yearns for less one-day and T20 games and more Tests.
“They’re not playing enough Test matches, which I think is a great shame,’’ she said.
“Let’s face it, the word is ‘Test’ and it does test you if you’ve got two even teams. If a bowler is bowling accurately and well, and the field is supporting the bowler, it’s a wonderful challenge for a batter. That’s the appeal of the game.’’
On her last day at primary school Mr Collis was saying goodbye to Miriam Knee and her classmate Roger Smith.
“You will play cricket for Australia one day,’’ he told her.
And she did.
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