Ann McKenna


Ann McKenna is a New Zealand former cricketer and New Zealand field hockey player. She played in seven Tests and fourteen Women's One Day Internationals between 1969 and 1987.
McKenna first represented New Zealand at hockey, doing so twice in 1967 and 1971.
At cricket, opening for her team in the classical batting style was a major contributing skill, as well as being a fiercely competitive player and student of the game and leader, which led to the inevitable role of captain. She batted many a cricketball by herself to perfect her technique, tied in an old sock to a 6 foot high horizontal branch of an oak tree at her married home in Hillsborough Terrace in Christchurch. Norman Kirk prime minister of New Zealand used to live next door for a few years until his death in office in an almost identical standard weatherboard house with nearly no fencing. As perennial captain of St Albans she would often put herself in at number 3, like when she made 88* and Vicki Burtt made 148*, a partnership of 242 unbroken that has become a club record for St Albans. She favoured a Gray Nichols bat. She also bowled medium spin in all the teams she played for. She still held the St Albans club record in 2005 for most appearances for the club at 330 in 2005.