Jill Hodgson travelled to Sydney for the first game of the Ashes series between the Australian and English women cricketers.

It was played at North Sydney Oval where the gates had to be closed before lunch as the ground had reached capacity, 6,236.

Past players at the game marvelled at the contrast between ‘then’ and ‘now’ in terms of spectator numbers, support for the women’s game, and the skill and athleticism of current players.

Jill is a former Cricketer with Women’s Cricket Australia. In 2022 she received an OAM for her services to the Boorowa, Greenethorpe and Grenfell Communities.

She is pictured with another past player, Tina Macpherson, who played for Australia in the first women’s world cup in 1973.

Tina took the first 5 wicket haul in that world cup series, 5 for 14.

Jill played for NSW between 1964 and 1969 and played NSW Juniors 1964/65 and seniors from 1966.

While her maiden name was Bowler, she only bowled occasionally in club games, so never put her name on bowling list.

Jill said this led to some hilarious exchanges when she did come on to bowl

"When I played against England in a Southern NSW side in 1969, the captain wanted to change her bowlers ‘end to end’ so asked me to bowl an over," she said.

"The English batter got such a surprise at a slow bowler coming on third over, she hit the ball in the air, straight to a fielder, and was caught."

"So my claim to fame is a bowling figure of 1 for 0 against England!, and pictured in Goulburn paper," Jill said.

After returning to Boorowa around 1970 Jill had one match with the Boorowa men’s team when they played Gunning with Tina Macpherson bowling her bullets for them.

Jill said this was just before Tina started working two jobs to get enough money for the 1973 trip to England.

"Today’s players are so fortunate with the money they receive, t’s only come in the last few years," Jill said.

The current Ashes series consists of three one day games in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, three T20s in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide, and one test match.

The test will be played over four days at the MCG and marks 90 years since the first women’s test match was played in Australia.