Heather Knight, the England all-rounder, has been named as the captain of International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Women’s ODI team of the year 2017.
The ODI team was selected by the same panel, which had voted for the annual individual awards, and included Chloe Saltau, Mel Jones, Lisa Sthalekar (all Australia); Charlotte Edwards, Kalika Mehta, Alison Mitchell, Alan Wilkins (all England and Wales); Anjum Chopra, Snehal Pradhan (both India); Olivia Caldwell (New Zealand); Firdose Moonda, Natalie Germanos (both South Africa); Sa’adi Thawfeeq (Sri Lanka) and Ian Bishop, Fazeer Mohammad (Windies).
The panel took into consideration player performances from 21 September 2016 to date.
Under Knight’s leadership, England won the ICC Women’s World Cup this year. During the time period that was taken into consideration to select the side, Knight also compiled 725 runs at an average of 42.64 and took 14 scalps.
Meg Lanning, who compiled 819 runs at 74.45 in the time period, will open the batting with England’s Tammy Beaumont (785 runs). The strong batting line-up also consists batters such as Mithali Raj (889 runs) and Amy Satterthwaite (1183 runs), while Sarah Taylor has been picked as the wicketkeeper. The veteran cricketer accrued 525 runs and effected 10 dismissals.
Dane van Niekerk and Marizanne Kapp, the seasoned campaigners from South Africa, have also been also selected in the team. Van Niekerk, who leads South Africa, took 39 scalps at 18.56 and scored 636 runs in the time period, while Kapp bagged 38 scalps and compiled 434 runs.
Ellyse Perry, the bedrock of the Australian team, (905 runs at 82.27 and 22 wickets) also made into the side. Ekta Bisht (34 scalps), the Indian left-arm spinner, Alex Hartley (33 wickets), who too bowls slow left-arm orthodox, have been included as the frontline spinners.
ICC Women’s ODI team
Tammy Beaumont (England), Meg Lanning (Australia), Mithali Raj (India), Amy Satterthwaite (New Zealand), Ellyse Perry (Australia), Heather Knight (captain) (England), Sarah Taylor (wicketkeeper) (England), Dane van Niekerk (South Africa), Marizanne Kapp (South Africa), Ekta Bisht (India), Alex Hartley (England)
