We count down the best female players of the last 25 years
26-Sep-20241:56
Hayley Matthews glad she’s on other side of Shabnim Ismail’s ‘death stare’ now
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). You’ll find out over the next two days.The game has evolved dramatically over the time frame under consideration for this list, particularly in the last decade with the advent of the WBBL, followed by the Hundred and WPL. More international teams are now beating each other and this upcoming World Cup has the potential to be one of the most competitive.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.In this piece, we count down from Nos. 15 to 6. Here are Nos. 25-16 and 5-1.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 bowling15: Shabnim Ismail (South Africa)Shabnim Ismail: among the top five wicket-takers in international cricket•Gallo ImagesThe quickest bowler in women’s cricket, Ismail clocked 132.1kph in the WPL in March 2024, a year after she sent down a fiery spell that included multiple deliveries upwards of 128kph to bowl South Africa to their first senior World Cup final. Ismail played in all eight T20 World Cups from 2009 to 2023 and exited on the highest of highs in a home final. It ended a 15-year international career that included four 50-over World Cups, in which she forged a reputation for her passionate on-field presence and commitment to getting quicker. Ismail is the second-highest wicket-taker in women’s ODIs, behind Jhulan Goswami, and in 2022 equalled the record for most ODI wickets in a calendar year: 37. Overall, Ismail is the fourth-highest wicket-taker in all women’s internationals. She is South Africa’s fourth most-capped ODI player and third-most capped T20 international, and at 35 years old, is still going in the leagues. – 14: Harmanpreet Kaur (India)Harmanpreet Kaur goes big during her 171 not out in the World Cup 2017 semi-final•Getty ImagesA ferocious bat-swing, great power-hitting ability, and a powerful slog sweep are keystones of Harmanpreet’s batting. All of those were on display in her epochal 171 not out in the 2017 Women’s ODI World Cup, a knock that sent the popularity of the women’s game skyrocketing in India. Harmanpreet has been the face of the new-age, aggressive Indian women’s cricket team, and was part of India’s maiden T20I series win in Australia in 2016. She became the first Indian woman to hit a T20I century, in the T20 World Cup 2018 against New Zealand. She was the first Indian – man or woman – to play in an overseas T20 league, when Sydney Thunder signed her up for the 2016 Women’s Big Bash League. Harmanpreet took over India’s T20I captaincy full time in 2018 and brought the same aggression to that role that she did to her batting. The high point of her international captaincy so far has been India’s runners-up finish at the 2020 T20 World Cup in Australia, and she also captained Mumbai Indians to the title in the inaugural Women’s Premier League in 2023. 13: Ashleigh Gardner (Australia)At 21, Ashleigh Gardner was the joint highest wicket-taker at the 2018 T20 World Cup•ICC/Getty ImagesAn important member of the most dominant team ever seen, Gardner is among the most versatile allrounders in the game, delivering value across formats with her explosive batting and crafty offspin. She showed a glimpse of her all-round prowess in the first ODI of the 2017-18 Ashes series, taking three wickets and then scoring a crucial 27 off 18 from No. 8. She has particularly excelled in global tournaments, making contributions with bat and ball in Australia’s title win in the 2018 T20 World Cup and playing an important hand in several games in their next two titles as well, in the 2020 T20 World Cup and 2022 ODI World Cup. Gardner also helped Australia claim the gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, taking three wickets in the final against India. She finished as the Player of the Tournament in the 2023 T20 World Cup, having scored 110 runs and taken ten wickets. Later that year she impressed in red-ball cricket as well, taking 12 for 165 in the Women’s Ashes Test at Trent Bridge.A regular in franchise cricket, she is among the most sought-after players on the circuit. 12: Deandra Dottin (West Indies)Deandra Dottin: match-winner with bat and ball•Getty ImagesFew can hit the ball as hard as Dottin. She was just 19 when she scored the first century in women’s T20Is, which also happened to be the fastest, coming off just 38 balls – a record unbroken 14 years later. Dottin is also the fastest woman to hit 100 sixes in T20Is, has the second-fastest fifty in women’s T20 World Cups, has hit the most sixes in women’s ODIs, and is the only woman to have made a century and taken a five-wicket haul in T20Is. Dottin is also an effective death bowler and an electric fielder. Her exploits in the shortest format make her one of the most in-demand players on the T20 circuit, where she has won titles with Adelaide Strikers in the WBBL and Trinbago Knight Riders in the CPL. She ended her decorated West Indies career in 2022 but walked back her retirement in July this year. 11: Mithali Raj (India)More than the weight of Mithali Raj’s phenomenal numbers, it was the impact she had on the next generation of female cricketers coming up in India•IDI/Getty ImagesRaj was the link between a generation that played for the love for the game and the one that plays for contracts – both domestic and international – and now has pay parity. As a teenager, she said she trained like a racehorse, because cricket was her only career path – at a time when there was no money in the game and the BCCI was nearly a decade away from taking over women’s cricket. She batted on all sorts of pitches, on torn mats and grounds that barely had any grass, travelling to and from games in trains, sometimes without a seat reservation, on measly allowances that barely covered one meal, and lived in barely acceptable accommodations. All that changed in 2017 when she led India to a runners-up finish in the 50-over World Cup, captivating the attention of a nation that had been largely indifferent to the women’s game until then. Raj was finally on the front pages after two decades of toil that had produced a number of records, including most runs in women’s ODIs. 10: Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka)Chamari Athapaththu has been prolific during the biggest moments in Sri Lanka’s history•Getty ImagesOne of the greatest players to come out of Sri Lanka, Athapaththu is a trailblazer for women’s cricket. A prolific top-order batter with a trademark aggressive style of play, she has been Sri Lanka’s backbone for about 15 years. She is the leading run-scorer for Sri Lanka in ODIs and T20Is, and is one among three women to have scored three T20I hundreds apiece. Under her captaincy, Sri Lanka registered their first T20I series win over South Africa and England, and a maiden ODI series win against New Zealand. Her crowning glory came in July this year, when she led Sri Lanka to their first women’s Asia Cup title. Athapaththu’s career has also been marked by several firsts for Sri Lanka, be it topping the women’s ODI batting rankings, making over 1000 runs in women’s T20Is, and playing franchise cricket. – 9: Smriti Mandhana (India)Smriti Mandhana: dismantling attacks the world over•BCCIA child prodigy who made her senior state team debut at 13 and captained them at 16, Mandhana has blazed a trail for over a decade at the international level. Armed with a silken batting touch and the ability to destroy accomplished attacks, Mandhana has also been consistent over long periods, which has placed her among the world’s top batters and among the most marketable female athletes in India. Instilling belief in the next generation of women cricketers in India has been a vital contribution Mandhana has made to the game. At a time when India’s representation in franchise T20 tournaments was next to nil, Mandhana broke the ceiling by featuring regularly in global leagues. And when India finally unveiled the WPL, she brought glory to one of cricket’s most popular sporting franchises, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, by delivering their first-ever title as captain. Most believe she is India’s next captain. 8: Hayley Matthews (West Indies)Hayley Matthews is now one of the leading allrounders in the game•Getty ImagesOne of ther most audacious feats in Matthews’ international career came in the 2016 T20 World Cup final. In a Player-of-the-Match performance, she hit 66 of 45 balls against then three-time champions Australia to help West Indies to their maiden title days after her 18th birthday. That was a sign of things to come from a precocious allrounder who would go on to captain West Indies. Matthews truly came into her own when West Indies toured Australia in 2023, hitting a blazing 132 in a world-record chase of 213. West Indies’ fortunes largely hinge on how she performs with bat or ball, and that explains why she has been in demand on the T20 leagues circuit. – 7: Sophie Ecclestone (England)Sophie Ecclestone has 260 wickets at an average of 16.3 and an economy of 6.1 in T20s•BCCIEngland’s devastating left-arm spinner has topped the ICC’s T20I bowling rankings since February 2020 and been No. 1 in ODIs since March 2022. That she isn’t higher on our list might be a reflection of the fact that she is still only 25, having made her international debut in 2016. This year she became England’s leading wicket-taker in women’s T20Is, and now sits fourth on the all-time world list with 126 at an average of 14.65 and economy rate of 5.85. In ODIs she has 108 at 19.94 and 3.66. The staggering thing about Ecclestone isn’t so much how far she’s come, but how far she can go. 6: Marizanne Kapp (South Africa)Across four ODI World Cups, Marizanne Kapp has taken 32 wickets at an average of 22.8•ICC/Getty ImagesA genuine allrounder, Kapp is an all-format player extraordinaire: the maker of a Test hundred, taker of a T20I hat-trick, and one of only three players to have scored 3000 ODI runs and taken 150 ODI wickets. She also has three ODI centuries. Her magic lies in how she plays the big roles in major tournaments, which include bowling with the new ball (often finding appreciable swing), and batting as high as No. 3 in the later stages of her career. Though never South Africa’s captain in name, she has led them through some of their most significant ICC performances, including reaching the semi-finals of the 2017 and 2022 ODI World Cups, and the final of the 2023 T20 World Cup, and was Player of the Match in the final of the 2022 Hundred and that year’s Fairbreak Invitational tournament. ESPNcricinfo’s top 25 women cricketer’s of the 21st century: Nos. 1-5 | 6-15 | 16-25
