Women's Ashes top 20: Raelee Thompson relives the 1984-85 Test series and final match from hell

What is the reward for a great achievement on the field of play if neither fame nor money exists?

Of course, there is personal satisfaction — enough to fuel the rest of your days and nights.

But an even-richer prize runs through most long sporting lives and it makes you envious when you see it because it is so lovely and true. 

It is with us right here in the old Blackie-Ironmonger Stand overlooking a game at the Junction Oval between Victoria and New South Wales.

The panoramic scene is laid out like a framed photograph under a sky as bright as the visiting players' uniform, with birds calling from the trees behind the nets and car engines humming up and down busy old St Kilda Road.

In the second back row of the grandstand named after two Test cricketers, Raelee Thompson is sitting with her memories on a dusty vinyl cushion.

You should know what she had to go through as captain of Australia against England in the remarkable summer of 1984-85.

When it was over, she cried for hours and never played another Test for her country.

Thompson was born in the Victorian town of Shepparton in 1945.

There was no club cricket for the first 21 years of her life.

«It just wasn't something that I was aware of … that you could play,» she says.

«I knew the men played club cricket but I never thought of playing.»

She moved to Melbourne as a young woman and started playing softball, mentioning to her coach one afternoon that she might want to give cricket a try.

Her coach, who happened to know Collingwood's leading player, Dawn Rae, made some introductions.

Thompson found cricket fun and she was an excellent fast bowler, batter and fielder.

Comparisons against modern players are kind to all athletes.

Looking down at the hard-hitting 40-over-a-side game on