We count down the best female players of the last 25 years
27-Sep-20241:21
Nat Sciver-Brunt builds her ultimate cricketer
Everyone loves a ranking list, right? Following on from our colleagues in ESPN, who have been running lists of the top athletes of the century on their platforms, we thought the 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup was a good time to look back over the 21st century so far and select the top 25 female cricketers.Will the player you expect to finish No. 1 finish here? Will a player be ranked too high? Will your favourite player be ranked too low or not make the list (sorry if that’s the case). Here are the final five.A group of ESPNcricinfo writers came up with a longlist of 50 names, which were then put into a voting system that played off pairs against each other. Once that was completed, a smaller group then assessed the list for anomalies or glaring omissions.Here are Nos. 25-16 and 15-6</a.Note: only achievements posted after January 1, 2000 are taken into consideration, even if the athlete’s career ran either side of the millenniumStats for 2000 and beyond
Test batting | Test bowling | ODI batting | ODI bowling | T20I batting | T20I bowling | All T20 batting | All T20 bowling5: Jhulan Goswami (India)Jhulan Goswami walks out to a guard of honour from her team-mates at Lord’s•ECB/Getty ImagesGoswami’s rise and the way she made a place for herself at the very top of the women’s game is a celebration of the potential that lies in India’s small towns and villages. Her two-decade long career was studded with several milestones, none bigger than her record for most ODI wickets. In 2017, she was part of a team that nearly brought home India’s first world title.Until her retirement, which fittingly came at Lord’s, also the scene of her (and India’s) biggest heartbreak, her career was marked by deep commitment, an abiding quest for perfection, and a willingness to fight the odds. She prevailed over injuries to her back, heel, shoulder, ankle and knees.Goswami was among the quickest bowlers on the women’s circuit. Her height allowed her to extract steep bounce, and her ability to nip the ball off the seam, alongside her unerring accuracy made for a potent combination. Ask Meg Lanning, to whom she bowled arguably the women’s cricket version of Shane Warne’s “ball of the century” to Mike Gatting’, at the World Cup semi-final.In her post-retirement career, Goswami is actively involved in coaching, at the grassroots in Bengal, and as bowling coach for inaugural Women’s Premier League champions Mumbai Indians. 4: Alyssa Healy (Australia)Alyssa Healy has often been at her best in World Cups•Getty ImagesBig players, they say, own big moments, and that makes Healy – ironically nicknamed Midge – a giant of the game. Her 170 in the final of the 2022 Women’s ODI World Cup set Australia up for their seventh title in the 50-over format, and underlined their status as pace-setters of the sport. Healy was the leading run-scorer at the event and her 509 runs were also the most by a batter in any single edition of the tournament.Healy has been part of two ODI World Cup-winning teams and six T20 World Cup champion sides, and has been a major contributor in those wins. She was the leading run-scorer at the 2018 T20 World Cup, the second-highest at the 2020 tournament and the fourth-highest in 2023.Her unbeaten 148 against Sri Lanka in 2019 was the second-fastest century in women’s T20Is, and at the time, the highest score in the format. Healy’s ability to take the game away at clutch moments was best demonstrated against India in the 2020 T20 World Cup, in front of more than 86,000 people, where she struck 75 off 39 balls to all but decide the title. The move to permanently opening in ODIs in 2017 was a gamechanger for her: from that point on Healy has averaged 44.92 with a strike-rate of 99.25.Healy won the ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Year title in 2018 and 2019. She is one of six Australians to have scored more than 3000 ODI runs and is the second-highest run-scorer for them in T20Is. She also is their most-capped T20I player and has the most catches in women’s T20Is: 61. She was named Australia’s all-format captain in December 2023, replacing the retired Meg Lanning, having led them to Ashes retention earlier that year.Perhaps the only thing missing from her CV is a Test hundred, but she has come as close as it gets, with 99 in her last outing, against South Africa. 3: Meg Lanning (Australia)Meg Lanning’s trademark•Getty ImagesNothing about Lanning, a non-muscular, 5’6″ tall slim-built woman resembles a butcher. Except when she plays the cut shot to pierce the smallest gaps at backward point.Lanning had an incredible international career, spanning over a decade, in which she scored a plethora of runs and rewrote captaincy records. Thrust into the top job at 21, she led Australia to one ODI World Cup and four T20 World Cup titles during her ten-year tenure. Australia won a record 24 consecutive ODIs under Lanning’s captaincy, the longest winning streak for a captain across genders in the format. She grew in her role as captain and formed a potent combination with head coach Matthew Mott, making Australia the world-beaters they became after the disappointment of the 2017 ODI World Cup.Apart from the raw numbers, Lanning’s ability to step up in key moments and deliver notable performances made her stand out. Her stunning 152 not out in the 2017 ODI World Cup against Sri Lanka in a tall chase was an example. Or her unbeaten 133 in a T20I during the Women’s Ashes of 2019. Her ability to drag the team through to winning positions from tight corners calmly was remarkable; her consistency while doing it made her achievements all the more incredible.Lanning’s retirement last November was something of a shock; at only 31, there was a feeling she had a lot more to give at the top level. But perhaps it speaks of the demands placed on her in a decade where the women’s game grew exponentially. Opportunities on the T20 league circuit mean the world will get to see moer of Lanning, even if it is not in the familiar Australian yellow. 2: Nat Sciver-Brunt (England)Nat Sciver-Brunt has developed into one of the game’s leading players•ICC via Getty ImagesSciver-Brunt’s value to any team she plays in is there for all to see. England’s win percentage in T20Is when she is playing is 75.21% compared to 58.82% when she isn’t in the side. In ODIs it’s 74.47% when she’s playing versus 46.25% when she’s not.But it is useful to look beyond numbers to gauge her influence on England. Team-mates have repeatedly spoken of the calm, quiet, lead-by-example impact she has as a player, vice-captain, and at times stand-in captain.It’s also worth taking a qualitative approach over a purely quantitative one when considering her on-field performances. Twin unbeaten centuries in what turned out to be futile chases against the Australians at the last 50-over World Cup, including in the final, and two more hundreds on the ODI leg of the 2023 Ashes for one defeat and one series-levelling win show what she can do when the stakes are highest.England faced a stretch of time without her, when she took a mental-health break in 2022, which helped pave the way for other players to feel comfortable saying they need to take time out – relevant amid the rapid growth of women’s franchise cricket.Sciver-Brunt was Player of the Match when her Mumbai Indians side won the inaugural WPL last year, and she was the tournament’s second-highest run-scorer and eighth-highest wicket-taker, having drawn the joint-highest bid for an overseas player in the auction. She also topped the run charts in the 2024 Women’s Hundred.Sciver-Brunt missed the start of England’s home summer in 2024 after undergoing an egg-freezing procedure but ended Pakistan’s visit by scoring another unbeaten ODI century and taking 2 for 11 from five overs; she was making her bowling comeback after a long-term knee injury. Sciver-Brunt’s candour about her brief absence and her return to prominence afterwards can surely open another door for women and highlight her trailblazer status in the game. 1: Ellyse Perry (Australia)There isn’t much that Ellyse Perry hasn’t achieved in the game•Getty ImagesPerry is the complete cricketer. She was Australia’s youngest international at 16, and having begun with bowling as her primary weapon, developed into one of the game’s greatest allrounders. Her landmarks include a Test double-century and Australia’s best ODI bowling figures, 7 for 22. It was after that haul during the 2019 multi-format Ashes that former England captain Charlotte Edwards hailed her as “the greatest female player we’re ever going to see”. Early the following year she was named the ICC’s Women’s Cricketer of the Decade.Perry’s career is rife with numerous highlights and match-winning displays. They include a nerveless 3 for 18 in the 2010 T20 World Cup final, where she intercepted the final delivery with a right boot, serving as a reminder of her dual-international status: she scored at the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Then there was an injury-defying performance in the 2013 ODI World Cup final, with 3 for 19 against West Indies.One of her most iconic moments was the double-hundred against England in 2017, her first hundred in international cricket. Two years earlier she had taken nine wickets in the Ashes Test, including 6 for 32 in the second innings. Perry’s Ashes Test batting average is 67.25 and bowling average 19.11.There was agony in 2020 when a severe hamstring injury ended her T20 World Cup on home soil, but she fought her way back, and having lost her place in Australia’s T20I, side she quashed talk about whether the format was moving ahead of her by bringing a new level to her batting. If someone does eventually challenge Edwards’ claim about Perry, she will be a remarkable player. ESPNcricinfo’s top 25 women cricketer’s of the 21st century: Nos. 1-5 | 6-15 | 16-25