Aimee Watkins

A spin-bowling allrounder, Aimee Watkins first came to the notice of the New Zealand selectors as a member of the New Plymouth Girls' High School team which won the 2000/2001 Yoplait Cup. A true allrounder, she is a powerful hitter of the ball and an accurate offspin bowler. She was a member of the 2001 New Zealand Cricket Academy and toured Australia with the New Zealand 'A' team, later debuting for New Zealand in the 2001-02 Rose Bowl Series.

Watkins won the State Plate award that season given to the best women's domestic player after she captained State Central Hinds to the State League title, taking 16 wickets and scoring 280 runs in the process. She was in mixed form in the ODIs on the tours of Australia and England in 2007: two centuries and a 81 punctuating five innings that yielded four runs. It was with the ball that she starred in the 2009 World Cup, finishing as New Zealand's leading wicket-taker with 11, including 4 for 2 against South Africa. She took over as New Zealand captain after Haidee Tiffen's retirement in 2009, and led the team with distinction to two World Twenty20 finals.

Though she never added to her two Tests, Watkins passed 100 ODIs for New Zealand and when a chronic knee injury - and a desire to see something of life outside the game after 10 years as an international - prompted her retirement in July 2011 she was ranked in the top 10 one-day batsmen and the fifth-best allrounder in world cricket.
Cricinfo Staff July 2011