Molly, her mates, and the meaning of cricket

A mild mid-week evening in Melbourne and Molly Strano is the designated driver. It is a self-appointed role, one borne out of a want to catch up with two of her good friends – irreverent 80-year-old Julie Jones and one of Jones' many partners in crime, 68-year-old Chris McInnes.

At Essendon Maribyrnong Park Ladies Cricket Club, they're known more succinctly as JJ and Ginny, and they are but two of a small army of old gals who have, across almost the past half-century, made the club what it is today.

The list reads like a murderers' row of Australian women's cricket: two former captains in Raelee Thompson and Marg Jennings; debut Test century-maker Lorraine Hill (also the first woman to bat at Lord's); and two-time World Cup winner and renowned broadcaster Mel Jones.

Not that cricketing feats equate to any kind of hierarchy at EMP, as the club is better known. In fact it is JJ, whose record in the sport is comparatively modest, who "leads the charge", according to those who would know.

"She's such a great egg," Strano tells cricket.com.au. "She's a social butterfly and she just loves to have a good time.

"These ladies, they love a drop of red, and they love a beer. It was a bit dangerous the other day after one of our home games, I put my card behind the bar and said to everyone, 'Go up and treat yourselves to a drink'.

"All the players just had a soft drink because it was a pretty hot day and everyone had to drive home, but all the oldies went up straight away and got a couple of beers and a few reds, so it ended up costing me an arm and a leg!"

Image Id: 1BB1B94C2D2E43F29A346A470F4F15AC Image Caption: Molly Strano with her great mate Julie Jones

Off-spinner Strano, a seven-time Australia rep and the Rebel WBBL's all-time leading wicket-taker, is among the more recent crop of national players to have donned the red and black (as are leg-spinners Georgia Wareham and Kristen Beams, while top-order batter Elyse Villani is another recent addition). She is also one of the great characters in Australian cricket, an effervescent ball of energy with a magnetic personality and a happy habit of marching to the beat of her own drum. She has been at EMP for approximately half her life, from back when her lofty dreams far outsized her teenage frame, and there is zero doubt this crazy cricketing coterie helped shape her into the person she is today.

The same person who, right now, is lost.

See, JJ and Ginny have accepted the offer of a lift home from clubhouse drinks and dinner (spaghetti bolognese whipped up by another EMP life member, Erini Gianakopoulos), but they've been derelict in their navigational duties. Molly, left to her own devices, has made a wrong turn. Or several.

"Typical Molly, you know – she put a lot of mayo on that story later, saying she didn't get home until 12:30am because JJ took her via Melton," laughs Ginny as she offers her back-seat perspective.

"And she's now declared she'll never take us home again."

To be clear, such a declaration is only Molly teasing. She knows all too well there will be another night, just like this one, where she nominates herself designated driver for these mentors and mates, counsellors and cheerleaders for the young women of their beloved club. They will again climb into her car, and she will again lose her way in the north-western suburbs of Melbourne. Because there isn't much that Molly Strano wouldn't do for JJ and Ginny – and the rest of them, too, the EMP old gals known collectively as 'Bay 13'.   

"It's almost like age is an illusion at EMP," she says. "Some of my best mates are 80 years old – it's so bizarre."

***

Julie Jones is back from a check-up with the cardiologist. There's another appointment next week with a specialist, but for now, the news is good.

"Just an ultrasound today," she explains. "Anyway, they found a heart, so that's the main thing. If things look OK next week, I might even get a game in the firsts, who knows?"

Julie, she of the sabre wit, had heart surgery just before Christmas. Doctors replaced a tired valve that turned 80 last October with one more in sync with her youthful exuberance. Her father had the same operation in the 1970s, but back then it was an ordeal; ribs broken, dire forecasts floated.

None of that for JJ. 

"I was actually talking cricket to the anaesthetist as they did it," she says, marveling at the miracles of modern medicine. "All over in 40 minutes, and then you have to lay still for six hours – well that's easy, you just read a book and go to sleep. I was home two days later."

Julie was collected from the hospital by Ginny, as well as Raelee Thompson, who in a past life was a four-time captain of Australia. These ladies have long been there for one another in ways both big and small. The waters of their friendships run much deeper than cricket. When Julie lost her brother last year, Ginny, Raelee and a handful of their EMP friends made the 75-minute drive north-west to Castlemaine for the funeral. It's just what they do.

"You know that if you need some help, any health issues, you can speak to them and say, 'Look, I've got a problem here', and they'll help you sort it out," says Ginny. 

"Raelee's got to have a knee replacement in the next few weeks – I think that's a bit of a legacy from all her cricket over the years – so she'll need a bit of help getting around. We'll be going to her place to pick her up so she can still get to the cricket."

Thompson, or 'Rails' to her mates, averaged 18 with the ball in both Tests and ODIs, taking 81 wickets in 39 matches. Nowadays she is content to be seen as simply another face among Bay 13.

"I don't know who called us that, but yes, I'm part of it," she concedes. "I just call us the 'Cricket Tragics'.

"I've got some really good friends down here, and it's just good to be with them. And the young kids are fantastic – Molly and those kids. They treat us as equals, and I guess we treat them as equals as well.

"Julie and Chris, and Molly, they're all really good friends."

On this stifling Monday, Raelee is driving solo to EMP's home base Aberfeldie Park from her home in Hillside, some 25 minutes to the west on the fringes of suburban Melbourne. She is keen to watch the Under-18s go about their business, and not even the 38-degree heat can dissuade her from attending.

On Saturdays, this trip is usually made with two stops and a vehicle change. The routine runs like this: Raels drives to Keilor East to pick up JJ (who makes sandwiches) then the two of them make their way to Ginny's in Essendon. From there, the three ladies pile into Ginny's red Kia Cerato (where Julie's camp chair is permanently stored for away games), and complete the five-minute journey to the ground that has been theirs since it was commandeered way back in 1976 through a mix of canny opportunism and sheer good luck.

"We had a big to-do with Essendon Council when the footballers threw all our stuff out of the pavilion and down the hill – the fridge and everything," says Julie Jones, stretching her memory back through the decades. "I went to the Council and asked them to build a women's pavilion, and they said, 'No, we're not building any pavilions on that ground'.

"But the men … they upset the local residents, so I just said, 'Well why don't you kick them out and put us in? We'll behave'. I can't say that we did, but…

"Nothing happened for almost a year, but then the mayor rang me and said, 'Look, I've remembered what you said, and these men have become so obnoxious that we've had to find them another ground, away from residential areas, so you're welcome to have that pavilion' – which meant we also got the turf pitch."

That was before the beginning, when Essendon and Maribyrnong Park were neighbouring rivals. It had been suggested to Julie that she take her daughters down to the Essendon Ladies Club to play cricket, and she was soon enticed to try the game herself. She was immediately enamoured and, encouraged by her husband Ray, who was delighted his girls had fallen for a game that he too loved, Julie signed up. She could not have known it would be for life. In 1982, by which time Julie had naturally burrowed her way into the club's administration, Essendon began merger talks with Maribyrnong Park.

"My husband said to me one night, 'Julie, you have to compromise'," she says, grinning at the memory.

"I said, 'What are you talking about?'

"He said, 'You insist it's called Essendon, you insist the colours have to be red and black – you've got to give them something'.

"So they got Maribyrnong Park tagged on, behind Essendon."

All these years later, Julie is still turning up every second Saturday, sharing her home-made sandwiches (ham and salad if Raelee is there, and eggs if she isn't) and either a glass of red or a beer with a group of women who mean more to her than she can feasibly explain. Last summer, the club fitted out their pavilion balcony with a table and some comfortable chairs for their Bay 13 ladies, and it is there they spend those weekend afternoons, hollering support and holding court in their corner of the cricket world.

***

Molly traces the true origins of her relationships with the grand old gals of Bay 13 back to a tour of South Africa in 2013. It isn't exactly de rigueur among women's Premier Cricket clubs (nor men's for that matter) to be travelling the world playing matches, but the unorthodoxy of EMP makes up a good dose of its charm, and when you have a world renowned cricket figure in Mel Jones in your ranks, boasting a rolodex of impressive contacts, you take advantage.

"That trip was the catalyst for it all," remembers Molly. "We were so lucky because Jonesy teed it all up. We flew into Cape Town, went to Johannesburg, did this big trip through South Africa, then went on safari – it was just an incredible opportunity for a bunch of club cricketers. 

"We played a handful of games, and had a hell of a lot of fun. Went to a few wineries, did a lot of extra-curricular activities. It was an absolute hoot.

"We had about 30 of us, and the ratio of current and past player was like one-to-one. I was only 20 at the time and for us young kids it was just a really special trip where our connection with those past players really blossomed.

"Since then there's a few of them who haven't missed a game we've played."

Image Id: 2332E12B70544A9E9E8200A0CADA9190 Image Caption: The Bay 13 ladies get their hands on the T20 World Cup trophy

EMP and Hobart Hurricanes player Emily Smith was only 18 on that trip but she has an enduring memory that is simply too good not to share.

"We had this game where all the old girls decided they were going to be the 'one-over wonders', and they all got out there and fielded for an over," she smiles. "And I couldn't believe it, but Raelee Thompson was still walking in with the bowler."

Before that, in 2011, they had toured India. At that point, Mel Jones had been at the club six seasons, having originally been convinced by Julie Jones to join EMP as she entered the twilight of her 66-match international career.

"Julie had nagged me for most of my playing career, really, and I was at a stage where I was still playing at state and Aussie levels but I wanted to get into coaching, and I wanted to get out of my comfort zone a little bit," she remembers.

"The clubs I'd played with, which I'd thoroughly enjoyed, it was about playing club cricket, and you'd go to training, and that was almost it. Whereas I got the vibe very quickly that it was a lot more than that at this club, and there was a big chance to develop that even more."

Part of that development was the overseas tours. Jones had taken as much or perhaps even more out of the exploring side of her international travails as the cricket itself, collecting special moments and memories along the way. She didn't think it was right that those opportunities were limited only to elite cricketers.

"I just thought that shouldn't have to be the case," she says. "You should be able to experience the joys of touring whether you're playing third grade cricket or playing for Australia. And thankfully I had a lot of good contacts."

Such tours paved the way for the EMP ladies, both young and old, to embark on their own adventures.

In 2015, Julie and Raelee headed to the UK to watch the Women's Ashes. In Canterbury, they had some unexpected visitors in Molly and Emily, who were playing in the Royal London Women's One-Day Cup that season but had taken some time out to travel around Great Britain.

"She'll kill me for telling you this," grins Julie conspiratorially. "It was the third night of the Test and they were out til 4am, bowling paper cricket balls to Mike Gatting in a pub somewhere, so they weren't too well the next day.

"Apparently they'd 'lost' their accommodation at their hostel, so Raelee and I said, 'Well, we've got a big room with a king-sized bed and a king single, so you can come and bunk in the king-sized bed with one of us.

"Anyhow, I lost the toss, so Molly, Em and I shared a king-sized bed."

Image Id: 992C1B9CA24440B9AA9473811A1BD3FB Image Caption: Ashes 2015: From the outhouse to the penthouse with 'JJ'

Mel Jones recounts the same anecdote and hints at missing details that have never quite come to light regarding how the girls happened to find themselves homeless, though the moral of the story shines through: the EMP ladies are always there for one another.

Jones agrees it was South Africa where the relationship between the two groups of women – the current players and those from yesteryear, separated by a couple of generations but united by cricket – was properly established.

"Molly really came into her own in terms of leadership and connecting the past players with the current players on that trip," she says. "And we haven't really looked back."

***

When Ray fell in the pool during a freezing Melbourne winter, Julie Jones knew the time had come to move out of their five-bedroom family home. She had liked the idea for a good while but the logistics had always made it easy to put off. She had been out shopping when it happened, her husband saved instead by an alert neighbour. Typically, she laughs at the memory now as she calls to mind the sight of the two older men, arm-in-arm and sopping wet as they made their way to the safety of indoors. Ray ended up in hospital with the very real threat of pneumonia, though a more severe diagnosis awaited him.

"First time I realised he had something wrong was on the golf course," she says, a little more quietly now. "He was over on the other fairway and I'd been saying to him for quite a while, 'Lift your bloody feet'.

"He was shuffling, and that particular day, when I saw him from a distance, I thought, Oh jeez, there is something wrong.

"It turned out to be Parkinson's."

Two years ago, Ray was moved into an aged care facility, around 10 minutes down the road from Julie. Nowadays, he is wheelchair bound, though that didn't stop him returning home last year to celebrate his 80th alongside his wife of 60 years ("you only get 20 for murder," says Julie). There, inevitably, they were joined by the Bay 13 brigade, and Julie was left to consider the fickleness of fate, the way she has been able to overcome various health setbacks to enjoy her later years versus the cruel confines of Ray's condition.

"I don't say too much about my galivanting," she says. "It's not nice at all. It's terrible."

Ray doesn't talk a great deal when Julie visits, though he comes to life when she is accompanied by Maggie, their Jack Russell. Every Friday he takes a FaceTime call from his son in Brisbane, who was able to visit in December between border closures, and the Jones' other children – and grandchildren – are also regular visitors.

The other consequence of Ray's need for full-time care is that Julie is on her own in their three-bedroom place in Keilor East, a fact that made Melbourne's lockdown period all the more challenging for her. She could still follow her routine of taking Maggie up to Aberfeldie Park three times a week for a run-around, but the absence of the social outings left a vacuum that needed to be filled. It was the same for several others from Bay 13, and so instead of dwelling on self-pity, they got proactive, setting up a Wednesday night Zoom chat that continues today. Lorraine Hill doesn't have the technology needed to join in, so instead she calls one of the ladies from her home phone, is put on speaker, and listens to the group conversation as it unfolds, throwing in her two cents whenever she feels it is needed.

"It's hysterical," laughs Mel Jones. "These women can tell the best stories, and Molly doesn't mind a story or two either."

Image Id: 9B07D978E6364FA39F5C96292437679D Image Caption: Mel Jones and the EMP crew enjoy a social occasion

Yes, Molly is on the calls. She hates to miss them. During one of the more stringent periods of COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, she and Emily Smith were worried about the loneliness of some of the Bay 13 ladies.

"It was around Easter, things were starting to lock down and we knew that JJ's partner was in a nursing home and she couldn't go and visit him," Smith says. "Same with Ginny, we knew these ladies weren't able to go and visit what family members they had, so Molly and I made these little Easter baskets and went and visited all of them in one day.

"It was actually a decent trek. Hilly, Raelee, (former NSW rep and Australia team manager) Ann Mitchell … we left the Easter eggs at their front door, and we had to keep our 1.5 metres which was hard, because I do like a hug.

"We're always trying to think of them, do those little things when they might need it. For a couple of them in particular, EMP probably does fill that void, of things maybe missing in their lives, whatever that may be – it's different for everyone."

From Molly's perspective, it is simply what their friendship is about. Julie is matter of fact when she says she would do anything for the younger girls, and Molly views their relationship through the same lens.

"I know she'll always be there for me – she's always in my corner and I'm very grateful to have her in my life," she says. "She's not only been a great friend of mine but such a great mentor, and when one of us is in need, we're more than happy to pick up the phone and call.

"I see them weekly, we organise dinners almost fortnightly. We hang out so much and they're definitely people I lean on in all aspects of life, whether it be relationships, getting into the housing market – just life challenges, I guess – they're people I feel more than comfortable talking with about anything."

Molly thinks these ladies might well have been to every one of the seven matches she has played for Australia. During last year's Women's T20 World Cup, they piled into a bus and spent a week in Canberra visiting wineries and breweries … and watching some cricket. Sam Strano, Molly's dad, was roped into driving, her mum Katrina in the back with the old gals.

"Every time I see them in the crowd," Molly says, "it just warms my heart."

Image Id: 15CC85C46BEF4C3FBAAA921AC7562B3C Image Caption: The Bay 13 brigade took a road trip to Canberra during last year's T20 World Cup

Recently, Smith too has found comfort in the warmth and wisdom of the Bay 13 ladies when she has truly needed it. During the 2019 WBBL, an errant Instagram post meant she was handed a three-month suspension by Cricket Australia. It caused national headlines and as CA and the Australian Cricketers' Association came to loggerheads over what many perceived to be a harsh punishment, the whole saga rumbled on. Despite a generally sympathetic media reaction, Smith was nonetheless left to deal with a very public humiliation.

"It wasn't something that you'd seen someone go through before, so I just had to try and take it in my stride and do what I needed to do to get through," she reflects. "At some points it felt like a long three months, but with places like EMP, and I still loved watching the Hurricanes play, those things helped make the time go by.

"It sounds cliché but EMP has always been a place where, no matter where I am – overseas or somewhere else in the country – it always feels like home. You know those people are always going to be there, and that's what I love about it. I haven't found a club that compares."

Through a challenging time, Smith was in constant contact with the likes of Lorraine Hill and Raelee Thompson, while Julie Jones was insistent on giving the 26-year-old a 'reducation' when it came to her tastes in wine. Even as recently as Christmas night, Lorraine and Raelee FaceTime called her "just to chat about life". There was reciprocity in that, too.

"That relationship goes beyond cricket," she says. "It's nice to check in and have that relationship with them, because they don't actually all have kids, so it's nice to keep in contact from both our perspectives."

Smith also regularly relied on Mel Jones, who was a source of strength and support throughout her ordeal, and who has been a good friend before and since.

"I was so lucky to have Jonesy there," she says. "She's gone through some tough situations in her life as well, and she was a great person to have in that situation, just to keep me on the straight and narrow.

"I remember she said something one night – and she might not even remember saying it – but she said: 'No matter how mad or sad you are, always give it 24 hours, and you might see it in a different light'. That's really stuck with me since."

***

Last March, when the Melbourne Cricket Ground hosted 86,174 people for the Women's T20 World Cup final, Raelee Thompson and Marg Jennings stood out in the middle of that coliseum between innings, the hallowed turf beneath their shoes, trying to wrap their heads around the scene in front of them. They had been friends for 50 years, traversed all manner of ups and downs, but they had never experienced this.

Raelee remembers spending some time a while back tallying up the total financial costs of her cricketing career, in equipment, lost wages, flights, hotels, accommodation and more. She figured it to be somewhere around $40-50k – more than enough to pay off a house in the era in which she played.

"Now, they get that in one year," she says, understating the shift in the women's game. "You do get a big kick out of that, and the little part you might have played.

"To be able to watch that World Cup last March, well that was just the ultimate thing you always wished you were going to see.

"You dreamt that something like that might happen, you know, and I think once in India we had quite a few people watching us, but the way that World Cup was promoted, and the success of it, was absolutely brilliant."

Image Id: 11098C380F954E53B6608367C4E29F7F Image Caption: Meg Lanning and the Aussies lap up World Cup glory // Getty

The line between the Essendon Ladies' acquisition of Aberfeldie Park on the outskirts of Melbourne all those years ago and a packed-out MCG – the epicentre of cricket – is a meandering one, barely visible to most. But it is there if you know where to look.

"These women did all the really hard groundwork to set up a moment like that," Mel Jones says of her forebears like Raelee and Marg, who stood alongside more familiar names like Belinda Clark and Christina Matthews on the MCG that evening.

"Not a lot of people can connect those dots but when you hear about what they've done, it keeps you grounded in a lot of ways, and makes you realise the importance of really keeping in mind where you come from."

Strano sees it, too. The way a global celebration begins with countless minor moments at a local level; the stories passed down through the generations at EMP are unique, but their themes are universal.

"When you speak to these ladies, it gives you great perspective," she says. "They've been through the ups and downs in life, and they had their challenges being female cricketers and playing for a standalone female club.

"The things they've fought for, to allow our club to still be operating today, have been phenomenal. I think that's what makes all of us current crop really protective of our club, and it's almost a legacy piece – we've heard all the stories about the club going through financial troubles, things around ground availability … it makes us really grateful for everything they've done for us, to allow us to run out in the red and black nowadays and have the fantastic opportunities we do in the game."

***

Next week, Molly and her mum Katrina, together with Mel and Raelee, are getting together for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in North Melbourne.

It is these relationships, and the cricket, that Raelee insists continue to offer her a glimpse of her youth. The former Australia captain, 75, has only a brother and sister still living. She's not sure either of them ever watched her play a single game of cricket. Sensing their closeness from afar, it's not difficult to see how these women view each other almost as family.

"Knowing you're there at the cricket, together with your friends, and you're all watching, it's just a great feeling," Raelee says. "I love it when summer comes around. It's my life. They're some of my best friends.

"Sport brings people together like that, and it always will. It's a binding thing, for sure.

"And it takes years off your life – I always say today's 60s and 70s are yesterday's 40s and 50s."

Sometimes, in her mind's eye, she even catches herself thinking she could get back out there.

"I do, yes, it's amazing," she adds. "The mind certainly thinks you can get out there and bowl away, run quick singles … but I know all of that is impossible."

And so that element of the fun is enjoyed instead by the current generation. No-one typifies that more than Molly, a woman who long ago saw the mutual benefits of bridging the gap between the now and then among her small pocket of women's cricketers.

With the return of state cricket, Molly's playing opportunities for EMP in the back-end of the summer will be limited, while she hopes she will be in the Australia squad for an upcoming tour of New Zealand. Not that any of that matters in the grander scheme. The friendships established, the wisdom already imparted, the sense of home created – none of that is going anywhere.

"The beautiful thing about club cricket is that it's a safe place," Molly says. "It's home. You're always welcome there.

"In state land, or in the Aussie squad, unfortunately it'll come to a point where you get dropped, or you get pushed on. When I walk into those clubrooms at EMP I get a bit of a warm and fuzzy feeling. No matter what sort of form you're in, what place of life you're in, it's just this wonderful little community where you know you'll be welcomed with open arms."

Missing from Molly's list of cricketing achievements to date is life membership at EMP. Such recognition is no formality; the honour list includes men and women who have moved mountains for the club throughout its rich history. Yet Molly concedes the prospect is preoccupying her just a little.

"I'm hanging out for it … but I know deep down in my heart you've got to do a lot more for the club to earn life membership; all I do is invest a bit of money over the bar, and be designated driver every now and then," she says, underplaying her obvious impact.

"But whether I get life membership or not, it doesn't matter – I'll be there for life. I don't need the membership card. They won't be able to get rid of me.

"I love the people and the club, and it's a place where I can envisage myself not only finishing my playing career, but ending up in that Bay 13 brigade, and being there still when I'm 80 like JJ, drinking red wines on a Saturday arvo, watching the girls and heckling them from the boundary.

"I'll be there for a very, very long time."