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Women’s cricket is constantly growing, and matches are continuously being played on a bigger stage with larger crowds.
There are female cricketers who paved the way for others and continuously tried to grow the game even when only the smallest spotlight was on the sport, and such players need commending for their efforts.
So, let's dig into the incredible careers and achievements of some of the best female cricketers who are making history.
Top Female Cricketers
10. Chamari Athapaththu | Sri Lanka
Chamari Athapaththu is the greatest cricketer from Sri Lanka to have played women’s cricket.
Debuting as a 19-year-old, she was soon noted for her aggressive batting.
She became captain of the Sri Lanka national team and has helped a not-so-strong team challenge much more formidable opponents on the global stage.
In 2024 she led Sri Lanka to an underdog win in the Asia Cup women’s T20I series and finished as Player of the Tournament.
Chamari has also led Sri Lanka to its first-ever series wins over South Africa and England in T20Is and over New Zealand in ODIs.
She holds the record for most runs for Sri Lanka in women’s ODIs and T20Is, and her nine women’s ODI hundreds are a Sri Lankan record as well.
In April 2024, her unbeaten 195 helped Sri Lanka complete the first-ever successful chase of more than 300 runs in a women’s ODI.
In 2023, a seating zone at the Sydney Cricket Ground was named “Chamari Bay” in her honor.
9. Laura Wolvaardt | South Africa
Laura Wolvaardt made her debut for South Africa as an opening batter at age 16, and by age 25 she became her country’s record holder for most ODI runs, most ODI hundreds, and most T20I runs in women’s cricket.
Along the way, she became the youngest centurion, male or female, for South Africa in international cricket.
In 2024 Wolvaardt became only the third woman to score a hundred in all three formats of international cricket, achieving the feat in a Test vs. India.
After that, she was also named captain of the South Africa T20I team for the World Cup and captained her side to the final where it lost to New Zealand.
8. Heather Knight | England
Heather Knight took over as captain of the England women’s team in 2016 when Charlotte Edwards retired and led it to victory in the 2017 women’s ODI World Cup at home.
She was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year that year and was also awarded an OBE.
As of 2024 Knight has more than 5,000 runs in international cricket.
7. Amelia Kerr | New Zealand
Amelia Kerr is a third-generation New Zealand cricketer who emerged on the international scene with a bang.
At age 16, she was the youngest to earn a New Zealand Cricket contract and to debut for the national team in 2017.
The next year, at 17, she became the youngest cricketer, man or woman, to score an international double century. During that innings, she beat the women’s ODI record held by Belinda Clark on her way to an unbeaten 232.
Not content with scoring a double, she also took 5 wickets while bowling in one of the all-time great all-round displays.
Kerr has since been a consistent performer for New Zealand and in 2024 was named both the Player of the Final and the Player of the Tournament as New Zealand won the women’s T20I World Cup.
6. Hayley Matthews | West Indies
Hayley Matthews is a cricketer from Barbados who plays for the West Indies women’s cricket team and became the team’s captain in 2022.
Matthews is an all-rounder who has more than 4,000 runs in women’s ODIs and T20Is, as well as more than 100 wickets in each format.
A natural athlete, she played both track and field and cricket in her youth, before focusing on cricket and making her debut for the West Indies.
Her crowning glory was a Player of the Match performance in the women’s T20I World Cup final in 2016, as the West Indies beat favorites Australia to win its first title.
Matthews is a highly sought after player in franchise leagues across the world and was Player of the Tournament in the first edition of the WPL in 2023, when she helped her team, Mumbai Indians, win the title.
5. Nat Sciver-Brunt | England
Nat Sciver-Brunt plays international cricket for England. She has scored more than 6,000 international runs with 10 centuries and taken more than 150 wickets as of 2024.
She is credited with inventing the “Natmeg” shot, in which she hits the ball between her legs for runs.
In 2013 she became the first England bowler to take a women’s T20I hat trick.
Nat Sciver was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2018 and won the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year award in both 2022 and 2023.
She is married to fellow England cricketer Katherine Sciver-Brunt.
4. Ellyse Perry | Australia
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 twice, in 2017 and 2019.
In 2020 she was named the ICC Female Player of the Decade. Perry is one of the most famous female cricketers in the world.
3. Harmanpreet Kaur | India
Harmanpreet Kaur debuted for India in 2009 but is best remembered for an unbeaten innings of 171, which helped underdogs India beat Australia to reach the final of the 2017 women’s ODI World Cup.
The knock made her a household name in India and helped take the popularity of the women’s game to the next level.
She has also scored India’s fastest T20I hundred off only 49 balls. Harmanpreet has more than 7,000 international runs and more than 70 wickets.
In 2016 she became the first Indian cricketer to sign a contract with the Australian Big Bash League, playing for Sydney Thunder. In 2017 she was awarded the Arjuna Award.
Picked as captain by the Mumbai Indians in the WPL, she led them to victory in the inaugural season of the WPL in 2023. She was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year the same year.
Harmanpreet has also captained the Indian women’s national team across formats since 2016.
2. Alyssa Healy | Australia
Alyssa Healy is a wicketkeeper batsman who captains 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 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 2020 Healy surpassed MS Dhoni’s record for the most wicketkeeping dismissals in T20Is by any keeper, male or female.
1. Smriti Mandhana | India
Currently regarded as one of the best batters in women’s cricket, Smriti Mandhana holds several coveted records to her name.
She has scored more than 7,000 international runs with more than 10 hundreds across formats.
Her nine ODI hundreds are an Indian women’s record.
She captained her state team Maharashtra in 2013 at just age 16 and debuted for India the same year.
Mandhana was the costliest buy in the inaugural WPL auction and was picked by the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) as captain for 3.4 crore rupees.
She led RCB to victory in the second edition of the WPL in 2024.
Mandhana won the ICC Women’s ODI Player of the Year award in 2018. She has also won the Rachael Hayhoe Flint Award for Best Women’s Cricketer of the Year twice, in 2018 and 2021.
