Ann McKenna, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetAnn McKenna
New Zealand cricketer
Date of Birth: 27-Oct-1943
Place of Birth: Christchurch, Canterbury Region, New Zealand
Profession: cricketer
Nationality: New Zealand
Zodiac Sign: Scorpio 
About Ann McKenna
- Ann McKenna (born 27 October 1943) is a New Zealand former cricketer and New Zealand field hockey player.She was born in Christchurch and her father was on the board of NZ Cricket for some years Dave Colville, instilling in her the love of the game.
- He used to get regularly waylaid by Ann and her brother John on the way in the door from his plumbing work, so they would play cricket on their small lawn at their first house on Stanmore Road which used to be next door to Kingsley Boys home, and then later at 243A Ashgrove Terrace. Ann first represented New Zealand at hockey, doing so twice in 1967 and 1971. As a hockey player she usually played centre half and represented Canterbury University and Harewood at club level.
- She was offered work and passage to Canada as the provincial coach of the British Columbia Womens Hockey team in 1975 and was based around Vancouver with her family while she regularly toured with the B.C.
- team.
- She returned to being selected for the New Zealand womens cricket team shortly after moving back to New Zealand. At cricket, opening for her team in the classical batting style was a major contributing skill, as well as being a fiercely competitive player and student of the game and leader, which led to the inevitable role of captain.
- She batted many a cricketball by herself to perfect her technique, tied in an old sock to a 6 foot high horizontal branch of an oak tree at her married home in Hillsborough Terrace in Christchurch.
- Norman Kirk prime minister of New Zealand used to live next door for a few years until his death in office in an almost identical standard weatherboard house with nearly no fencing.
- As perennial captain of St Albans she would often put herself in at number 3, like when she made 88* and Vicki Burtt made 148*, a partnership of 242 unbroken that has become a club record for St Albans.
- She favoured a Gray Nichols bat.
- She also bowled medium spin in all the teams she played for.
- She still held the St Albans club record in 2005 for most appearances for the club at 330 in 2005.In the later half of the 1980s she was named player of the national (or first class as it is usually known) tournament at the North Shore in Auckland, and this cup the teams played for at this time was called the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield, the precursor to the Hansells Cup.
- She partly achieved this prestigious honour by scoring 194 not out against Otago in the previous 2 day format, and due to time restrictions involving flights, retired from the crease just before the prize-giving ceremony, the last game to still be in progress.
- Canterbury maintained near total domination of the competition during the 1980s and into the start of the 1990s, by usually winning the shield consecutively.
- Catherine Campbell, Debbie Hockley and Lesley Murdoch were members of this golden period for Canterbury cricket also, and Catherine also played for St Albans club with Ann for well over a decade. Ann attained 10,000 runs for St Albans Cricket Club based at Hagley Oval during the 1980s, and was named in the official first 11 of the 20th Century for New Zealand Womens Cricket shortly after the end of the century, when these surviving members of the team were awarded trophies.
- On February the 16th 2019 she was awarded a baggy cap with all surviving NZ womens cricket reps and baggy black caps in an official ceremony at Hagley Oval during the mens game between New Zealand and Bangladesh.
- She was also given a NZ shirt with 58 on it to denote her being the 58th women ever selected for the NZ womens cricket team. She was still selected being selected to play for New Zealand on the Indian tour of March 1985 at 42 years of age, and also during the following tour when they played at Lords in England.
- In India they played at the most famous grounds sometimes selling out venues, one of the reasons being that the New Zealand women played in culottes which showed the leg between the top of the long sock to just above the knee, and while this was not acceptable in Indian women's cricket at the time, it was extremely popular with Indian men combining two of their favourite pursuits. In 1995 she was awarded coach of the year across all womens sports in New Zealand for her coaching of the national womens cricket team, and was proud to see many of that team finally win the womens World Cup in 2000.
Read more at Wikipedia