Netta Rheinberg
MBE (24 October 1911 – 18 June 2006) was an English
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
er, journalist and administrator. She appeared in one
Test match for
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
in 1949, against
Australia. She played domestic cricket for
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbourin ...
.
Her single Test match came on
England's tour of Australia in 1948/49. She was the team's manager, and had to play in the match because of injuries to other players.
She made a
"pair", becoming the first woman to do so on Test debut.
Rheinberg was most notable in the women's game as an administrator and journalist.
Rachael Heyhoe-Flint
Rachael Heyhoe Flint, Baroness Heyhoe Flint, ( Heyhoe; 11 June 1939 – 18 January 2017) was an English cricketer, businesswoman and philanthropist. She was best known for being captain of England from 1966 to 1978, and was unbeaten in six Te ...
, the former England captain, said of her work as an administrator, "Netta was an action girl. We had very few people then, and she galvanised activity, partly just by having a great personality and a sense of humour."
"For a north London Jew, playing cricket for England and being one of the game’s most important administrators is about as well-trodden a career path as prime minister or bacon-buttie salesman," wrote Rob Steen shortly after her death aged 94 in 2006. "That Rheinberg happened to be a woman made her accomplishments all the more admirable."
She was secretary of the
Women's Cricket Association in 1945 and from 1948 to 1958. She was also membership secretary and vice-chairman of
the Cricket Society. She edited the magazine ''Women's Cricket'', reported on women's cricket for
''Wisden'' for more than thirty years, and wrote a regular column for
The Cricketer
''The Cricketer'' is a monthly English cricket magazine providing writing and photography from international, county and club cricket.
The magazine was founded in 1921 by Sir Pelham Warner, an ex-England captain turned cricket writer. Warne ...
.
With Heyhoe-Flint as co-author, Rheinberg wrote a history of the women's game.
In 1999 she was one of the first ten women to be awarded honorary membership of
MCC.
MCC delivers first 10 maidens
(BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
, 16 March 1999)
References
External links
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England women Test cricketers
Cricket historians and writers
English cricket administrators
English cricket umpires
Members of the Order of the British Empire
1911 births
2006 deaths
People educated at South Hampstead High School
English Jews
Jewish cricketers
Middlesex women cricketers
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