Betty Wilson
Often called the female Bradman, a reference to Australian batting legend Don Bradman, Betty Wilson was one of Australia’s greatest cricketers in an era when women’s cricket was not very common. A precocious talent, she had to wait until the end of the Second World War to debut for Australia in Test cricket. Famously turning down marriage proposals so she could continue to play for Australia, Wilson took the first hat trick in women’s cricket and scored three Test hundreds in her career, including one on debut. Since 2007, Cricket Australia has given the Betty Wilson award to the most promising young women’s cricketer of the season.
Belinda Clark
Belinda Clark was the first player, male or female, to score a double century in an international cricket game, doing so during the 1997 women’s ODI World Cup. She captained Australia to two women’s ODI World Cup titles in 1997 and 2005. A consistent batter with an average over 45 in both Tests and ODIs, she later served as chief executive of Women’s Cricket Australia. Clark holds the record for the most career runs for Australia in women’s ODIs. Since 2013, the most outstanding female Australian cricketer of the season has been honored with the Belinda Clark Award (it was named the Women’s International Cricketer of the Year award from 2002 to 2012).
Cathryn Fitzpatrick
Cathryn Fitzpatrick was one of the fastest bowlers in women’s cricket during her career. She played a key role in two Australian women’s ODI World Cup-winning sides in 1997 and 2005. Her 180 women’s ODI wickets are an Australian record. Fitzpatrick also coached the Australian women’s national team from 2012 to 2015.
Karen Rolton
Karen Rolton was a consistent top-order batter for the Australian team for more than a decade. Until limited by injuries, she was also a medium-pace bowler who took more than a hundred international wickets. Rolton was Player of the Match in Australia’s 2005 World Cup win over India, scoring an unbeaten 107 runs; she was also Player of the Series in the tournament. In 2006, Rolton won the inaugural International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s Player of the Year award. She holds the Australian record for most career runs in women’s Tests.
Lisa Sthalekar
Lisa Sthalekar is an India-born Australian all-rounder who has taken more than 200 international wickets and scored almost 4,000 runs. She won the Belinda Clark Award for Australia’s outstanding female cricketer of the season in 2007 and 2008 and was Women’s International Cricketer of the Year in 2007. After retirement, Sthalekar found success as a cricket commentator and analyst.
Ellyse Perry
Ellyse Perry is one of the greatest all-rounders in the history of cricket based on sheer numbers: a Test batting average of over 60, a Test bowling average below 22, and women’s ODI batting and bowling averages of 50 and 25, respectively. In 2007, at age 16, Perry became the youngest Australian to play international cricket. She is also the first Australian to have appeared in cricket as well as football (soccer) World Cups, playing the latter in 2011 in Germany. She has won the ICC Women’s Player of the Year award (named the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award in 2017) twice, in 2017 and 2019. In 2020, she was named the ICC Female Player of the Decade. Perry is one of the most famous stars in women’s cricket.
Alyssa Healy
Alyssa Healy is a wicketkeeper for the Australian women’s national team. She had a middling batting record until 2017 but has since remodeled herself into a formidable opening batter. In 2018, she was Player of the Tournament in Australia’s women’s Twenty20 International (T20I) World Cup win; she was named Women’s T20I Player of the Year that year. Healy was also Player of the Match when Australia successfully defended its T20I title in the 2020 final. She continued her big-match streak with a Player of the Match performance in the 2022 women’s ODI World Cup final, scoring a mammoth 170 runs and earning the Player of the Series award. In 202,0, Healy surpassed MS Dhoni’s record for the most wicketkeeping dismissals in T20Is by any keeper, male or female. She is the niece of former Australian men’s wicketkeeper Ian Healy and is married to Australian pace bowler Mitchell Starc.
Meg Lanning
Meg Lanning is one of cricket’s most successful captains, a charge she took up at the age of just 21. She is also an aggressive and consistent batter, with a women’s record 15 international ODI hundreds. She also holds the Australian record for most women’s T20I career runs. In 20,15, Lanning was named the inaugural Wisden Leading Woman Cricketer in the World. She was also named the ICC T20I Women’s Cricketer of the Year in 2014 and ICC ODI Women’s Cricketer of the Year in 2015. She made a shocking decision to retire from international cricket at age 31 in 2023.
Rachael Heyhoe Flint
Rachael Heyhoe Flint was a pioneer of women’s cricket and helped popularize and promote the sport both during and after her career. She played a key role in organizing the first women’s ODI World Cup in 1973, two years before the first men’s edition, and led the England women’s team to victory. She hit the first six in a women’s Test and held the record for most Test runs at the time of her retirement. Heyhoe Flint also played international hockey for England as a goalkeeper. She was one of the first women to be admitted to the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1999 and, in 2004, was the first woman elected to its main committee. She was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1972 and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2008 and was named a life peer as Baroness Heyhoe Flint of Wolverhampton in 2011. She co-authored a book titled Fair Play: The Story of Women’s Cricket, which was published in 1976. She passed away in 2017; the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year award was renamed the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award in her honor that year. England’s domestic 50-over women’s tournament was renamed the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy in her honor in 2020, and in 2022, the East Gate at Lord’s was renamed the Heyhoe Flint Gate.
Charlotte Edwards
One of the most prolific batters in the history of women’s cricket, Charlotte Edwards scored more than 10,000 international runs during her career for England. In 1996, at age 16, she became the youngest cricketer at the time to debut for England. She captained England for the last 10 years of her career. She led England to the 2009 women’s ODI as well as the women’s T20I World Cup titles and was named ICC Women’s Player of the Year in 2008. In 2014, she was named one of five Wisden Cricketers of the Year, was one of the first 18 women players to be awarded central contracts, a big step forward for the professionalization of women’s cricket, and was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). Since her retirement, she has been a coach and commentator.