Holly Colvin

Female Pupil of the Year

Holly Colvin was born in Chichester on 7 September and attended Westbourne School, West Sussex, where she began playing cricket. Holly began playing for the school first X1 whilst in year seven where she averaged over 100 with the bat. From Westbourne, Holly moved to Brighton College where she followed Sarah Taylor in playing for the boys team. When she and Taylor appeared in the Lord’s Taverners under 15 Cup in 2004, the only girls amongst the 1,000 competing teams, there was consternation within the MCC with Robin Marlar calling  their participation, ‘absolutely outrageous’. The Headmaster of Brighton College dismissed the comments and as far as Holly was concerned it was just funny. In December 2006 Holly was named as ‘Female Pupil of the Year’ by The Telegraph’s School Sport Matters Campaign. By this time Holly was playing for Sussex as a left arm orthodox bowler, and  was part of the side that won the Women’s County Championship in 2005 and 2008.

Holly Colvin

International debut at Hove

Holly’s first opportunity to play international cricket came in August 2005 when she was invited to bowl her left-arm orthodox spin against the England team in the nets at Hove and ended up playing on what was a dry, dusty wicket at the tender age of 15 years and 336 days, the youngest player of either sex to play Test cricket. She took three wickets on debut, with two of them coming in successive balls. Of her debut Holly said, “I think I was fortunate… I had no idea who I was playing against – all these big names that were coming up against me and I had pretty much no idea”.

Holly might have expected to wait for further games but over the following two years she played two Test matches and 11 One Day Internationals. In 2006 during a Quadrangular Series in India, Holly took 3/50 in the play off for 3rd/4th place to secure 3rd place for England. Holly played her first international T20 tournament  in August 2007 when she played all three matches against New Zealand, taking wickets in all three matches.

The Ashes retained in 2008

Holly might have expected to wait for further games but over the following two years she played two Test matches and 11 One Day Internationals. In 2006 during a Quadrangular Series in India, Holly took 3/50 in the play off for 3rd/4th place to secure 3rd place for England. Holly played her first international T20 tournament  in August 2007 when she played all three matches against New Zealand, taking wickets in all three matches.

In February 2008, Holly was part of the Women’s Test side that travelled to Australia to defend the Ashes won in 2005. The team won by six wickets with Holly setting a new personal best for Test matches taking 3/42 in the second innings. In 2009 Holly played a crucial part in the winning of the Women’s World Cricket Cup taking nine wickets in the final against New Zealand.

Holly retired from cricket in 2015 to take up a post as the senior women’s cricket officer at the ICC. In her career she had played in five test matches, 72 One-Day internationals and 50 T20 matches, taking 173 wickets in the three formats.