Ellyse Perry claims top honours in ICC Awards of the Decade

ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Decade
ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Decade
ICC Female Player of the Decade

The numbers*

73 ODIs, 2621 runs, average 68.97, 2 centuries, 98 wickets, average 25.09
100 T20Is, 1155 runs, average 30.39, 89 wickets, average 20.64

*Stats from January 1, 2011, to October 7, 2020, the period taken into consideration for the ICC awards

ICC Women’s Player of the Decade award nominees

• Suzie Bates (New Zealand)
• Meg Lanning (Australia)
• Ellyse Perry (Australia)
• Mithali Raj (India)
• Sarah Taylor (England)
• Stafanie Taylor (West Indies)

ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Decade award nominees

• Suzie Bates (New Zealand)
• Meg Lanning (Australia)
• Ellyse Perry (Australia)
• Jhulan Goswami (India)
• Mithali Raj (India)
• Stafanie Taylor (West Indies)

ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Decade award nominees

• Sophie Devine (New Zealand)
• Meg Lanning (Australia)
• Ellyse Perry (Australia)
• Anya Shrubsole (England)
• Alyssa Healy (Australia)
• Deandra Dottin (West Indies)

Australia’s Ellyse Perry has swept the major individual women’s honours at the ICC Awards of the Decade: ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Decade, ICC Women’s T20I Cricketer of the Decade and ICC Female Player of the Decade. Perry has established herself as a vital cog in the Australia women’s side with superlative performances with bat and ball in all three formats.

An icon in Women’s cricket, Perry was the youngest to debut for Australia when she made her ODI debut in 2007, aged 16 years and 261 days. A multi-talented person, Perry had a prospective career in professional soccer but she chose to be a cricketer although she did go on to represent the Australia women’s team in the World Cup football.

Her bowling was the standout feature in her initial days as a cricketer, but Perry also became an acclaimed batter, with her stunning double hundred in the Ashes in Sydney in 2017 one of the many highlights of her career.

Perry played a major role in Australia’s domination of women’s cricket in the last decade; she was a key player in their five World Cup-winning campaigns. Her notable performance came in the 2013 ICC Women’s ODI World Cup where she took 3/19 in the final in Mumbai against West Indies despite limping with an injury. After aborting her run-up twice in her first over, she went on to deliver a maiden. After three overs, she had two wickets and conceded just three runs.

Her theory with the bat is pretty simple as she herself says — “Watch the ball. Make good decisions.” Her batting average, that was in the low 20s before the 2013 World Cup, went up to over 70 in ODIs since the end of the tournament. In the five Tests she played since, Perry made scores of 31*, 71, 31, 5, 13, 213*, 116 and 76*, averaging 111.20.

Greatest hits

Her most memorable moment probably came in the 2010 ICC T20 World Cup final against New Zealand when her footballing skills came handy. With New Zealand needing 14 runs to win in the final over, Perry restricted Sophie Devine and Liz Perry to nine runs from the first five balls.

With six needed to win and four to tie off the last ball, Devine hit a terrific straight drive that would have gone for four and tied the game had Perry not used her foot to deflect the ball to mid-on and win the title for Australia.

Superstat

She is the first and only cricketer in history to complete the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in T20I cricket.

Her vision

"My biggest hope is that it creates its own strong identity and exists in its own right - not as a comparison to the men's game," Ellyse Perry once said.

Quotes

Georgia Elwiss, England women cricketer: "She's always having a hit, always working on parts of her game, and she doesn't mind if that means she's last off the training ground. But she has fun along the way, as well. The way she goes about her business and how professional she is - while also being so lovely and so normal - says a lot about her."