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Friday Hoydens: Ellyse Perry and Suzie Bates

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There’s something about women cricketers… they just can’t confine themselves to one sport, dammit!

Ellyse Perry plays a forward defensive shot

Ellyse Perry, by YellowMonkey, CC BY-SA

Ellyse Perry is one of the Southern Star’s best known players, playing for the national team since age 16. She’s an all-rounder, and now aged 21 has appeared in 2 Tests and 39 One Day Internationals. (Women cricketers have far fewer opportunities to play Test matches than men do, a lifetime total of under 10 Tests is normal.) She also debuted for the Matildas, our national soccer team, in the same year as she began playing for the Southern Stars. In 2011, when she came on as a substitute in a Norway v Australia game in the FIFA World Cup she became the first woman to have represented Australia in senior World Cups in two different sports.

Suzie Bates stands with bat in the field

Suzie Bates, by paddynapper CC BY-SA

Suzie Bates was made captain of the White Ferns in December 2011. Like Perry, she is an all-rounder (or apparently so, I haven’t found her described as such, coverage of her online is poorer, and if you ever felt like contributing to Wikipedia today is your lucky day): she currently holds the highest batting average in her Twenty20 team, and she took four wickets in New Zealand’s path to the World Cup final in 2009. In addition to her years of cricketing, she also played for New Zealand’s basketball team in the 2008 Olympics, although she told Cricinfo that her responsibilities as cricket captain will probably mean that she cannot play again in the 2012 Olympics.

Perry and Bates will be part of the Southern Stars and the White Ferns respectively during their upcoming eight-match series in Sydney/Melbourne in late January and early February.

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2 replies

  1. Eden
    2012-01-15 • 6:30 PM

    Enjoyed this very much. The quality of play at the last Women’s World Cup was so good. Imagine what they could do with more funding/ leagues around the world!

  2. tigtog
    2012-01-16 • 7:31 PM

    One of my schoolmates (and fellow squash comp player – she always beat me), Sally Griffiths, ended up playing cricket for Australia in the 80s and 90s – from memory she also played netball at a representative level at school. In fact she and one other girl tended to dominate the sports section of the annual school awards night year after year.
    I bet she’ll be cheering this younger generation of players on.