Cricket: Cricketing great close to innnings declaration

By RICHARD BOOCK

It's hard to say who's the most concerned these days - Debbie Hockley over life after women's cricket, or women's cricket over life after Debbie Hockley.

Probably the best women's cricketer the world has seen is steeling herself for an expected exit from the game at the end of next summer's World Cup ("not straight away though, I'd hate to use it like that"), and is approaching this season as something of a swan-song.

If the 37-year-old goes through with her plan it will not only signal the end of one of the great batting careers in women's cricket, but will leave a gaping hole in both the New Zealand team and the life of Hockley - who has spent more than half her time besotted with the sport, and is not exactly sure about what happens next.

To counter what she expects to be a massive void, sailing lessons are in the wind, guitar practice has started, gardening is beginning to appeal, and she reads at every opportunity ("I've just started Penny Vincenzi's Wicked Pleasures, though it's not nearly as exciting as it sounds ...")

A part-time physiotherapist, Hockley lives at Christchurch's Sumner Beach, where the sea air and relative tranquillity help her rally against the effects of chronic fatigue syndrome - a condition which makes physical pursuits all the more difficult.

It was because of this that she asked to be overlooked for the New Zealand captaincy this month after being used in a virtual caretaker capacity last season, following an injury to Maia Lewis.

"I found last summer incredibly stressful and I simply didn't want to put myself through that again," she said this week. "You get physically drained and then you become mentally drained, and the stress levels rise accordingly.

"It's a shame in a way that there's been so many recent changes in the captaincy, but there's a lot of general leadership in the team these days and I'm sure [newly-appointed captain] Emily Drumm will do a good job in any case."

The player who will again carry much of New Zealand's batting hopes in the Shell Rosebowl Series - which starts in Melbourne tomorrow week - made international news a couple of seasons ago when she beat off challenges from within the struggling men's team to be voted New Zealand Cricketer of the Year.

It was not only a first for New Zealand but also for world cricket - and there was more to come shortly afterwards when Hockley became the first contracted (read paid) women's player in the history of the game.

Such have been changes since Hockley first started playing cricket that statisticians are still debating whether she has played 97 or 99 one-day internationals, although New Zealand Cricket has an unofficial record of her playing 98, during which time she has scored 3524 runs, including three centuries and thirty 50s.

The Canterbury captain was the first New Zealand women to score 1000 test runs and her current tally of 1301 (four centuries) is well clear of any other woman in the history of the game.

Although claiming to be "just" a stand-in skipper for New Zealand last season, Hockley was nonetheless a notable success, helping to wrest the Shell Rosebowl off the world champion Australians for the first time since 1995, and leading her country to a three-nil clean-sweep of the touring South Africans.

She also captained Canterbury to success in the inaugural State Insurance Cup that season, and was named New Zealand women's cricket Player of the Year.

This season, far from things being on the wane, she has already topped the State Insurance Cup batting tables with 379 runs at an average of 75.80 (including a century and three 50s) and is just as keen about the looming battles against Australia (three ODIs, England (five ODIs) and in the World Cup.

"I'm certainly not continuing this summer through a sense of obligation," she said. "I wouldn't do that. I still love the game, I'm always learning something new and I play out of a deep sense of enjoyment.

"For all that, I think about the days to come when I won't be playing and I wonder what it's going to be like. The game's been such a huge part of me and suddenly it's not going to be there any more - and that's kinda scary."