Surrey County Cricket Club are saddened to report the passing of Patsy Lovell, Surrey women’s most-capped player, who died on April 27, less than a week before her 70th birthday.
For someone who “lived and breathed cricket”, making her last England appearance in a World Cup final was the stuff of dreams.
Sadly, Surrey’s Patsy Lovell was unable to cap the fairytale with a victory, Australia winning by eight wickets with a hefty 91 balls remaining in the encounter at Melbourne in December 1988. She had been ever-present through the nine matches of the tournament, the off-spinning all-rounder claiming three-wicket hauls against Ireland and Netherlands among her 10 victims down under.
Lovell’s international debut had also come against Australia, at Canterbury in July 1987, when she had helped the hosts to victory by six wickets.
It was one of the highlights of a long career for the Croydon-born player whose county career began in 1974 and would last a quarter of a century, making her Surrey women’s most-capped player – a record that still stands. Her five first-class appearances were dwarfed by 94 in List A matches, a top score of 177 one of two centuries while 110 wickets came at just 16 apiece. There were many other matches too, for representative Surrey sides and a plethora of other teams.
But her involvement in the game was far from over when she retired, becoming the senior selector for the England team, and her many services to sport were rewarded an MBE in 2006.
In a special presentation ceremony in 2022, the allrounder was awarded a gold-embroidered Surrey cap to celebrate her cricket career as well as honour her invaluable contributions to the history of the Club.
The following year, Lovell’s commitment to cricket in her native county was marked with honorary life membership of Surrey CCC, described by her life partner Sue Robinson as “one of the proudest moments of her life, probably even eclipsing the MBE”, adding: “She lived and breathed cricket and it meant a huge amount to her to have her commitment recognised.”
