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Sports correspondent & historian with |
Over the cricket seasons, a number of Bay of Plenty women’s players have been selected to represent the New Zealand women’s cricket team, the most recent being Nensi Patel.
To identify the first Bay of Plenty player to earn selection for New Zealand Women, one must go back to a time when the world was emerging from the shadows of World War II.
Una Kathleen Wickham was born in Tauranga in 1923 and would go on to represent her country in both golf and cricket.
A schoolteacher by profession, Wickham earned selection in just the second New Zealand women’s cricket team, following in the footsteps of the pioneering 1935 New Zealand women’s side.
England broke new ground when they toured the Dominion in the 1934/35 season. New Zealand received a harsh cricketing lesson in the first test match, posting scores of just 44 and 122 in reply to the visitors’ commanding total of 503 for five wickets.
Wickham represented Auckland in first-class women’s cricket, with the formation of Northern Districts still nearly a decade away.
The Australian women toured New Zealand during the early months of 1948, playing a number of top-echelon provincial sides and one solitary test. New Zealand opened the test encounter at the Basin Reserve and were dismissed for 149. Australia replied with 338 for the loss of six wickets.
New Zealand’s second innings fell apart, with the hosts rolled for 87. Wickham’s test statistics from the match read one and two runs, with bowling figures of 0/18.
The following season, England Women made their second tour Down Under. England recorded scores of 204 and 165 in the one-off test, with Wickham returning bowling figures of 2/33 and 1/25. New Zealand were outclassed by 185 runs; however, Wickham scored three runs in her side’s first innings and then top-scored with 34 in the second innings.
The paucity of women’s first-class cricket during the 1930s and 1940s saw Wickham play just 11 matches for Auckland, in which she scored 417 runs, including a top score of 112. Her bowling statistics revealed 29 wickets, with best figures of 4/35.
With representative cricket opportunities few and far between, Wickham turned her focus to golf.
Joining the Tauranga Golf Club at Gate Pā, she won the Tauranga Golf Club Senior Women’s Championship an extraordinary 16 times.
Wickham represented Bay of Plenty every year from 1954 to 1968, and again from 1970 to 1975. During this period, the Thames Valley–Bay of Plenty team won the Russell Grace Women’s Interprovincial Cup six times.
In recognition of her sporting achievements, Wickham won the inaugural Bay of Plenty Sportsperson of the Year Supreme Award in 1969.
National success followed with victories in the New Zealand Match Play Championship in 1959 and 1969. She also secured the Stroke Play title in 1968 and partnered with Noel Johnson to win the inaugural New Zealand Mixed Foursomes title in 1973.
Wickham represented New Zealand in golf on eight occasions between 1953 and 1963.
In today’s sporting landscape, Wickham would likely have played far more international cricket, with the advent of ODI and T20I formats, and would undoubtedly be recognised as one of New Zealand’s sporting superstars.