Post by bob1953 on Jun 23, 2009 5:28:49 GMT
June 2009 - Special Edition
A Lords farewell –
Merilyn Fowler to score at the home of cricket
By Brendan Rhodes & Kylie Pitt – Hawkesbury Gazette 10th June 2009
BACK in the 1980s, a then 13-yearold Merilyn Earle went to Melbourne on a junior cricket development tour with her brother Bruce. She had no interest in cricket whatsoever and was only there as company for the scorer, but it started a life-long love affair with the game and especially scoring it.
Two years later, at just 15, Merilyn volunteered to be first grade scorer for the newly-formed Hawkesbury Cricket Club and was taken on, despite having scored just one game in her life, and at 16 she boldly marched into the offices of Cricket NSW to declare she wanted to score for Australia.
That cricket tour. and the events that followed, led to the now Merilyn Fowler being one of the best known people in NSW cricket, with10 SCG Test matches, countless One Day Internationals, Sheffield Shield, One Day Domestic, Twenty20 games and, of course, 23 years of Hawks' first grade matches behind her.
Mrs Fowler, who is married to retired Shield umpire Nick Fowler and has two children, Graeme, 3, and Rebecca, 18 months, announced her retirement from all scoring at the end of this season to spend more time with her family at their home in Bligh Park.
Her remarkable career will come to a close next month at the highest possible point in world cricket when she scores the Ashes Test between Australia and England at the home of cricket, Lords, something she is still coming to terms with just six weeks out.
It is an achievement that is virtually impossible to attain, considering scorers stopped travelling with international teams 10 years ago and Australian scorers very rarely even leave their home State, let alone the country.
"It's still surreal, I can't believe it's actually come about, but it's only six weeks away so it's very scary actually," Mrs Fowler said. "It was just an absolute lucky break really - the scorer who came out with the ICC World XI for the Super Test in 2005 is the Lords scorer and when the MCC was looking for someone to do the Lords Test this year he put my name forward and convinced them I was competent for the job.
"I've never been overseas at all, I only got my passport last week. It is certainly unprecedented for me and there's no better way for to finish because you can't do any better than a Test at Lords. "People say it must be a dream come true but it wasn't ever a box I thought I could tick because it's not readily available.
"The first Test (against India in 2000) was obviously special but you can't top doing this - I always get a bit teary when they play the National Anthem, so I reckon I'm going to be a shocker over there."
Mrs Fowler has also resigned from the board of the NSW Cricket Umpires and
Scorers Association, but will take on a new part-time role as a scorer mentor, observer and selector, joining her husband, now an umpire trainer, in producing new officials. The hardest part of scoring, she said, was ensuring everything was spot on, with all the figures that need to be supplied to the media on the fall of each wicket - and there was one part of the job she won't miss.
"Before the next batsman gets in we have to give the score, balls, minutes, fours, sixes, partnerships, who caught it, what ball of the over it was, who the bowler was and all sorts of information," she said. "I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't made mistakes but its finding and fixing them without panicking that makes a difference.
"Binoculars are wonderful and it's good when it’s televised because we can use the screen, and as much as I'm a traditionalist it was nice last season when the Shield players started wearing numbers.
"I think the worst of it is Twenty20 - it's a nightmare to score, I don't know a single scorer that enjoys them." Mrs Fowler listed her most memorable matches as when Peter Forrest made his maiden century with 177, Simon Katich scored 306 and Nathan Bracken took 6/4 to roll South Australia for 29, as well as all the Test matches, especially the final hurrah for Test legends Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Justin Langer, and her greatest regret was right here at the ground named after her father, Owen Earle Oval.
"I would have loved my boys to have won a first grade premiership, but it wasn't to be," she said.
And what next? "I have a deal with Nick that when Graeme plays, he's going to score and I'm going to umpire," she said.
Copyright© Hawkesbury Gazette - Wednesday 10/6/2009
A Lords farewell –
Merilyn Fowler to score at the home of cricket
By Brendan Rhodes & Kylie Pitt – Hawkesbury Gazette 10th June 2009
BACK in the 1980s, a then 13-yearold Merilyn Earle went to Melbourne on a junior cricket development tour with her brother Bruce. She had no interest in cricket whatsoever and was only there as company for the scorer, but it started a life-long love affair with the game and especially scoring it.
Two years later, at just 15, Merilyn volunteered to be first grade scorer for the newly-formed Hawkesbury Cricket Club and was taken on, despite having scored just one game in her life, and at 16 she boldly marched into the offices of Cricket NSW to declare she wanted to score for Australia.
That cricket tour. and the events that followed, led to the now Merilyn Fowler being one of the best known people in NSW cricket, with10 SCG Test matches, countless One Day Internationals, Sheffield Shield, One Day Domestic, Twenty20 games and, of course, 23 years of Hawks' first grade matches behind her.
Mrs Fowler, who is married to retired Shield umpire Nick Fowler and has two children, Graeme, 3, and Rebecca, 18 months, announced her retirement from all scoring at the end of this season to spend more time with her family at their home in Bligh Park.
Her remarkable career will come to a close next month at the highest possible point in world cricket when she scores the Ashes Test between Australia and England at the home of cricket, Lords, something she is still coming to terms with just six weeks out.
It is an achievement that is virtually impossible to attain, considering scorers stopped travelling with international teams 10 years ago and Australian scorers very rarely even leave their home State, let alone the country.
"It's still surreal, I can't believe it's actually come about, but it's only six weeks away so it's very scary actually," Mrs Fowler said. "It was just an absolute lucky break really - the scorer who came out with the ICC World XI for the Super Test in 2005 is the Lords scorer and when the MCC was looking for someone to do the Lords Test this year he put my name forward and convinced them I was competent for the job.
"I've never been overseas at all, I only got my passport last week. It is certainly unprecedented for me and there's no better way for to finish because you can't do any better than a Test at Lords. "People say it must be a dream come true but it wasn't ever a box I thought I could tick because it's not readily available.
"The first Test (against India in 2000) was obviously special but you can't top doing this - I always get a bit teary when they play the National Anthem, so I reckon I'm going to be a shocker over there."
Mrs Fowler has also resigned from the board of the NSW Cricket Umpires and
Scorers Association, but will take on a new part-time role as a scorer mentor, observer and selector, joining her husband, now an umpire trainer, in producing new officials. The hardest part of scoring, she said, was ensuring everything was spot on, with all the figures that need to be supplied to the media on the fall of each wicket - and there was one part of the job she won't miss.
"Before the next batsman gets in we have to give the score, balls, minutes, fours, sixes, partnerships, who caught it, what ball of the over it was, who the bowler was and all sorts of information," she said. "I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't made mistakes but its finding and fixing them without panicking that makes a difference.
"Binoculars are wonderful and it's good when it’s televised because we can use the screen, and as much as I'm a traditionalist it was nice last season when the Shield players started wearing numbers.
"I think the worst of it is Twenty20 - it's a nightmare to score, I don't know a single scorer that enjoys them." Mrs Fowler listed her most memorable matches as when Peter Forrest made his maiden century with 177, Simon Katich scored 306 and Nathan Bracken took 6/4 to roll South Australia for 29, as well as all the Test matches, especially the final hurrah for Test legends Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Justin Langer, and her greatest regret was right here at the ground named after her father, Owen Earle Oval.
"I would have loved my boys to have won a first grade premiership, but it wasn't to be," she said.
And what next? "I have a deal with Nick that when Graeme plays, he's going to score and I'm going to umpire," she said.
Copyright© Hawkesbury Gazette - Wednesday 10/6/2009
