Belinda Clark: First to score an ODI 200

For more than a decade, Belinda Clark wowed the crowd with her glistening batting.

In the women’s game for more than a decade, Australian captain Belinda Clark wowed the crowd with her glistening batting. Cricket pundits watched in sheer awe, as Clark constructed large edifices against the best in the business.

If we rewind back in time, Clark came into prominence when she was picked to play for Australia in 1991 against New Zealand at Hobart in a bilateral ODI series.  Even during her early days, Clark’s ability to use her feet like a ballet dancer against spinners just left everyone gasping for breath.

By mid-1990s, Clark had taken over the mantle of captaining the side form Lyn Larsen. However, it was in the 1997 World Cup held in India that she won fulsome praise for her breathtaking batting in the game against Denmark, when he she broke Charlotte Edwards’s record set earlier in the day against Ireland. She is the first player in the history of cricket to have compiled a double ton in the abridged version of the game. Even in the World Cup final at Eden Gardens against New Zealand, it was the skipper’s well-measured innings that helped Australia script a fine win to lift the coveted World Cup.

When Australia arrived on the shores of New Zealand in 2000 to participate in the World Cup, everyone expected Clark to lead from the front with her willowy magic. However, Lisa Keightley stole the thunder during the early phase of the tournament. In the nerve-wracking final against New Zealand though, it was Clark’s sparkling footwork against the slower bowlers that was in full flow. She agonisingly missed on reaching the three figure mark and Australia lost a cliff-hanger of a contest.

She put that disappointment behind her by leading Australia to another World Cup triumph in 2005 in South Africa. In the final they beat India.  In 2005, she hung up her spiked boots after the tour of England. Unfortunately, Australia lost the one off Ashes match at New Road.

Since retiring from the game, she is serving as a manager at Australian Cricket Academy. This year, she was inducted into Australian Cricket Hall of Fame with Mark Waugh.

Belinda Clark was an outstanding batter.  In fact, the columnist still rekindles fond memories of her sublime footwork in the World Cup final in 2001. She is arguably the best batswoman to have played the game. A true great of the game indeed!

(Bharath Ramaraj, an MBA in marketing, eats, drinks and sleeps cricket. He has played at school and college-level, and now channelises his passion for the game by writing about it)

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