Eileen Ash, oldest-ever Check cricketer, dies elderly 110

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2021-12-04 19:47:47

ECB pay tribute to “a outstanding lady who led an odd lifestyles”

Eileen Ash, who was once the oldest residing Check cricketer, has died on the age of 110 with the ECB paying tribute to “a outstanding lady who led an odd lifestyles”.

Ash, née Whelan, made her Check debut for England in opposition to Australia in 1937 and performed seven Assessments in overall, taking 10 wickets at a mean of 23.00 along with her right-arm seam bowling sooner than her retirement in 1949. In the course of her world occupation, she was once seconded to MI6 – the United Kingdom’s secret intelligence provider – right through the 2d Global Conflict.

Ash was once a well known determine all over her ultimate years. She rang the bell at Lord’s forward of England’s win within the ultimate of the 2017 Girls’s Global Cup in opposition to India, and two years later the MCC unveiled a portrait of her on the identical flooring.

Clare Connor, the ECB’s managing director of ladies’s cricket and the MCC’s president, mentioned: “Our game owes such a lot to its pioneers and Eileen was once one in every of them. I’m deeply unhappy to be announcing good-bye to her nowadays.

“Heather [Knight, England captain] and I went to talk over with Eileen about six months sooner than the 2017 ICC Girls’s Global Cup – she was once 105 on the time – and it was once one of the vital outstanding reports. Eileen taught Heather yoga, we performed snooker, we drank cups of tea and we leafed via newspapers and scrapbooks celebrating Eileen’s time as a participant within the Thirties and Nineteen Forties.

“She regaled us with some wonderful tales, together with how she got here to have her bat signed through Sir Donald Bradman at a French eating place in Sydney in 1949. I do know neither folks will ever fail to remember that day, it was once so particular.

“Our ideas and prayers are with Eileen’s circle of relatives as they arrive to phrases with dropping this sort of glorious lady and the tip of an astonishing lifestyles.”

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