Zoe Goss had always forged her own path in cricket, mostly because she'd been forced to.Īs a child, she displayed an undoubted natural ability in backyard games with her two brothers, and against neighbourhood kids during timeless games of street cricket in Perth's inner suburbs.īut by the age of 10, she was a cricketer without a team she couldn't play in a junior girl's competition simply because it was Perth in the early 1980s, and no such thing existed.

'She's never, ever been able to leave it behind.' And her name is synonymous with that single moment in her life. 'Zoe Goss is not like Jill Smith or something like that. 'Her name is just so recognisable,' says broadcaster Glenn Mitchell, Goss's junior cricket coach and a lifelong friend and mentor. Her name became the very thing that defined her.

I just wanted to be Zoe.' Zoe Goss at the peak of her cricketing powers // Gettyīut no matter how hard she tried, no matter how many years passed, she just couldn't shake that tag. I just wanted to be an environmental scientist. 'And when I first retired from playing, I just needed a rest from that persona of Zoe Goss. 'I'd always just been Zoe or Gossy before then.

'After it all happened, I became Zoe Goss,' she says today, a quarter of a century since the night that changed her life. But when she met new people, particularly in her professional life, she would simply introduce herself as Zoe and hope they would never discover her last name.Īfter years of being the Zoe Goss, she knew how they would react if they found out. From the Vault: When Zoe Goss dismissed Brian LaraĪhead of the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup, we take a closer look at some trailblazers who were crucial to the development of women’s cricket in Australiaįor almost a decade, Zoe Goss didn't want people to know her name.Īn accomplished environmental scientist and an athlete who had reached the very top of her sport, Goss wasn’t ashamed of who she was.

One Picture Two Hearts by Christy Goss