ESPNcricinfo Awards 2024 Women's captain of the year nominees: Healy's winning ways, Athapaththu's Sri Lanka magic
Alyssa Healy
Tests: P1 W1
ODIs: P9 W8 L1
T20Is: P15 W13 L2
Even in the post-Meg Lanning era, Australia continued to do Australia things across formats. Upon assuming the role in December 2023, Healy said she wanted to create a "new legacy" and vowed to empower young leaders within the squad. In her first year as a full-time captain, Healy's Australia posted series wins against India, South Africa, Bangladesh, and New Zealand in the shortest format and were favourites to defend the T20 World Cup. But a foot injury forced Healy, a match-winner especially in global events, to watch from the sidelines as Australia were knocked out of the T20 World Cup in the semi-final. Under her captaincy, Australia's only defeat in ODIs in 2024 came against South Africa but they made it up with a huge innings victory in the one-off Test on the same tour where Healy fell agonisingly short of a maiden Test century. Barring the T20 World Cup glitch, Australia had a dominant year.
Chamari Athapaththu
ODIs: P9 W5 L3 NR1
T20Is: P21 W14 L7
A greatly improved Sri Lankan team under Athapaththu had the busiest year in recent times. The maiden Asia Cup triumph at home will go down as one of the finest cricketing achievements by a Sri Lankan side. Not only did she smash 61 off 43 in the final as Sri Lanka chased down 168, but was also by a huge distance the highest run-getter in the tournament: 304 runs in five innings, at a strike rate of 147. Prior to this, she also led Sri Lanka to a historic maiden bilateral T20I series triumph against South Africa. She finished the year as the top run-scorer in T20Is behind Smriti Mandhana, with 720 runs. Though Sri Lanka underperformed at the T20 World Cup, with four losses in as many matches, Athapaththu said after the Asia Cup victory, she believes "Sri Lanka women's cricket is in safe hands," a credit to how she has inspired a young side.
Sophie Devine
ODIs: P9 W2 L7
T20Is: P16 W6 L10
Devine had a roller-coaster of a year as captain but in her storied career, she will now be remembered for delivering New Zealand women their maiden title in the T20I World Cup. New Zealand entered the tournament as rank outsiders, with a ten-match losing streak in T20s after their 3-0 defeat against Australia. In the first ten months, New Zealand had struggled to keep the contests alive, relying heavily on the likes of Amelia Kerr and Devine, and weathering new lows along the way. But they turned it around in UAE - they lost to Australia after beating India, but gathered unstoppable momentum to beat Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and West Indies and then South Africa in the final. Devine lost more matches than she won in limited-overs cricket in 2024, but all of that didn't matter on October 20.
Srinidhi Ramanujam is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo