Tuesday 26 January 2010

Cricket: The Greatest Female Cricketer of All Time

Before today I'm ashamed to say I had never heard of Betty Wilson, but reading her obituary, it is clear that she was a remarkable cricketer, and quite possibly the greatest female cricketer of all time, as you would expect from someone who was compared to Don Bradman. In fact, she went one better than her fellow Australian by being a superb bowler as well, completing the then-unheard of feat, in male or female test cricket, of scoring a century and taking 10 wickets in the same match in the 1957-58 series against England.

A test average of 57.46 with the bat and 11.80 with the ball is a remarkable achievement in any form of the game, no matter what the standard, and although the women's international scene may not have been as well developed as it is now, those figures demand respect. Indeed she gained that respect, becoming the first woman to be inducted into the Australian Sports Hall of Fame. There's a brief interview with her from a couple of years ago on Cricinfo, which does not reveal that much, other than a single-minded and driven individual, as one might expect.

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