Name Audrey Collins | ||
Rock This Love -Audrey Collins- "The First Beat"
Audrey Toll Collins OBE (14 April 1915 – 14 February 2010) played one test match for the England women's team in 1937.
Born in India in 1915, she was brought to England by her Australian mother in 1920 after her father's death in the Great War. She began her cricketing career at the age of 12 and went on to represent Middlesex and The South as well as appearing against Australia in the 1937 Ashes at the Oval. She scored 27 on her debut, putting on 54 in half an hour in partnership with Betty Archdale. After the Second World War she played for the East and became Secretary and then Chairman of the Women's Cricket Association from 1983 to 1994. Audrey taught chemistry at St Albans Girls' Grammar School for 35 years from the 1940s; I was one of her pupils.
She was awarded the O.B.E. for her services to the game and was one of the first ten female members of M.C.C. when the ban on female members was removed in 1999. After her death the England team, on tour in India, wore black armbands during the second one day international and both teams observed a minute's silence in her honour before the game. There is now an Audrey Collins Cup awarded to girls' cricket teams in Hertfordshire.