Netta Rheinberg

Netta Rheinberg MBE (24 October 1911 – 18 June 2006) was an English cricketer, journalist and administrator. She appeared in one Test match for England in 1949, against Australia. She played domestic cricket for Middlesex.[1][2]

Her single Test match came on England's tour of Australia in 1948/49. She was the team's manager, and had to play in the match because of injuries to other players.[3] She made a "pair", becoming the first woman to do so on Test debut.[4][5]

Rheinberg was most notable in the women's game as an administrator and journalist. Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, the former England captain, said of her work as an administrator, "Netta was an action girl. We had very few people then, and she galvanised activity, partly just by having a great personality and a sense of humour."

"For a north London Jew, playing cricket for England and being one of the game’s most important administrators is about as well-trodden a career path as prime minister or bacon-buttie salesman," wrote Rob Steen shortly after her death aged 94 in 2006. "That Rheinberg happened to be a woman made her accomplishments all the more admirable."[6]

She was secretary of the Women's Cricket Association in 1945 and from 1948 to 1958. She was also membership secretary and vice-chairman of the Cricket Society. She edited the magazine Women's Cricket, reported on women's cricket for Wisden for more than thirty years, and wrote a regular column for The Cricketer.

With Heyhoe-Flint as co-author, Rheinberg wrote a history of the women's game.[3][7]

In 1999 she was one of the first ten women to be awarded honorary membership of MCC.[8]