Five England players in World Cup XI
Five England players have made it to the women's World Cup 2009 XI announced by the ICC day after the team lifted their third world title by beating New Zealand by four wickets in Sydney
Cricinfo staff
23-Mar-2009
Charlotte Edwards and Claire Taylor are part of the women's World Cup XI • Getty Images
Five England players have made it to the women's World Cup 2009 XI announced by the ICC a day after the team lifted their third world title by beating New Zealand by four wickets in Sydney.
Claire Taylor, the leading run-getter of the World Cup who was named the Player of the Tournament, and Laura Marsh, who picked up the highest number of wickets, were part of the team that included New Zealand's Kate Pulford and Suzie Bates, India's Mithali Raj, Amita Sharma and Priyanka Roy and Australia's Shelley Nitschke. No players from the bottom four sides - West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa - made the cut.
Former Australian captain Belinda Clark, who headed the selection panel, said Haidee Tiffen, the New Zealand captain who was second in the run-getters' list, was unlucky to be excluded from the team because her strike-rate was lower than the others.
"We had a range of people around the table and quite heated debate because the performances during this tournament have been outstanding in a lot of cases but also quite even and this is what made it difficult," Clark said.
The tournament was dominated by spinners - only two of the top ten wicket-takers were medium-pacers - which is reflected in the World Cup team. Offspinner Marsh and legspinner Roy are backed by part-timers Nitschke and Charlotte Edwards, who was also named the team's captain.
Indian captain and fast bowler Jhulan Goswami did not make the side but she did take back her No.1 ranking from England's Isa Guha after picking up four wickets from seven games compared to Guha's three from five. Tiffen also improved her batting ranking by moving one place up to ninth for scoring 279 runs at 46.50 from six matches. Power-hitter Bates, who smashed 168 off 105 balls against Pakistan, jumped 11 places to No.16.
World Cup 2009 squad: Suzie Bates (New Zealand), Shelley Nitschke (Australia), Claire Taylor (England), Mithali Raj (India), Charlotte Edwards (England, capt), Kate Pulford (New Zealand), Sarah Taylor (England, wk), Amita Sharma (India), Katherine Brunt (England), Priyanka Roy (India), Laura Marsh (England), 12th woman: Sophie Devine (New Zealand).
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