Born on 5th March 1934 in Bedford, Audrey Disbury is a former England Test player and the first captain of the International XI ODI team.
Audrey played for a variety of domestic teams, was also a member of the “Unicorns” team to tour South Africa in 1974/5 and 1975/6. That she played in the International XI during the first World Cup in 1973 is testimony to her nomadic cricket career.
Audrey’s Test debut for England was at Lancaster Park, Christchurch against New Zealand in the first Test of the tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1957/8. She didn’t play again until the third Test against Australia at the Adelaide Oval and then the 4th Test at the WACA. She didn’t play Test cricket again until 1966 when she scored 44 and 25 in the third Test against New Zealand at the Oval.
On the six Test tour of Australia and New Zealand Audrey plays all of the Tests, now opening the batting. She gets plenty of starts, 20s and 30s but never really treats the spectators to the fullest extent of her talent. In her total of ten Test matches Audrey scores 391 runs at 24.43 with a high score of 47.
The tour to the southern hemisphere was the last international cricket Audrey would play until being called upon to lead the International XI in the first World Cup. The six matches the team played in the 1973 tournament represents the total of Audrey’s ODI career. She led the team to victories over New Zealand, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. We lost Audrey in 2016 when she passed away in Ashford, Kent.
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