Galaxy of women's cricket stars to enlighten Quadrangular Series in Chennai

A galaxy of women's cricket stars will assemble in Chennai, India, next month where the top four teams in the world, spearheaded by world champions Australia, will participate in the Quadrangular Series.

At a time when their male counterparts will be heading for the Caribbean for the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup, the four women's teams will use this tournament to launch their preparations for the 2009 ICC Women's World Cup to be played in Australia.

The Quadrangular Series, also contested by New Zealand and England besides 2005 Women's World Cup finalists Australia and India, will run between 21 February and 5 March with each team playing the three other line-ups twice each.

This is the second edition of the Quadrangular Series. The inaugural series was played in Lincoln, New Zealand, in 2003. The final saw Australia successfully defend a modest 214 to beat the hosts by 109 runs while, in the third place play-off match, England defeated India by 90 runs.

Australia captain Karen Rolton, one of the biggest names in the game at home and abroad, will be returning to the country where she last year collected the inaugural ICC Women's Player of the Year at the ICC Awards in Mumbai.

Four years ago in the inaugural Quadrangular Series, Rolton showed devastating form scoring 291 runs at 48.5, including half centuries against all the three opponents.

Rolton carried that fine form into the 2005 Women's World Cup scoring 246 runs, including a match-winning 128-ball 107 not out that sunk India by 98 runs in the final at Centurion.

32-year-old Rolton, who works for Australia Post, holds the record for most centuries in ODIs (7), the highest individual score in Tests (209 not out against England at Headingley in 2001), is one of the six batsmen to average 50 or more in ODIs and is also one of the eight cricketers to have played 100 or more ODIs.

This will be Rolton's third visit to India as a player. Her first tour was for the 1997 Women's World Cup before she returned in 2004 for a seven-match ODI series against India.

While Rolton will be targeting more success for Australia, New Zealand's Rebecca Rolls, a 32-year-old right-handed top order batsman, will be targeting two personal milestones in the series.

She needs just 17 runs to become the twelfth batsman to complete 2,000 ODI runs, and is only two ODIs from joining the elite group of eight cricketers who have played 100 or more ODIs.

Rolls' compatriot Debbie Hockley, together with Belinda Clark of Australia, lead the field with 118 caps each and are followed up by the English duo of Clare Taylor and Jane Smit (both 105), Australia's Cathryn Fitzpatrick (102), Emily Drumm of New Zealand and Rolton (101 each), and Anjum Chopra (100) of India.

New Zealand, also known as the White Ferns, has included two uncapped players for the tour - 29-year-old wicketkeeper/batsman Rowan Milburn and 25-year-old off-spinner Selena Charteris.

England, which has recalled Lydia Greenway after the 21-year-old left-hander averaged 111 in domestic cricket for Kent, has also included the 17-year-old duo of Holly Colvin and Sarah Taylor.

Colvin is the youngest ever player - male or female - to represent England at cricket, making her Test debut against Australia in the 2005 Ashes series aged 15 and taking three wickets in the first innings.

Taylor made her international debut in 2006 and hit run-a-ball 61 to help England secure the one-day series against India.

England's most celebrated women's cricketer, however, remains skipper and top order batsman Charlotte Edwards who scooped the Player of the Year awards in 2004 and 2005.

She had a quiet Quadrangular Series four years ago with scores of 23, 12, 4, 7, 79 not out and 21 but Edwards was at her brilliant best in the 2005 Women's World Cup where she finished with the highest aggregate in the tournament with 280 runs at 46.66.

However, Edwards' efforts were not enough to take England beyond the semi-final stage, where it lost to Australia by five wickets.

For the locals there are plenty of reasons to cheer the home team. Apart from some brilliant individual players, Mithali Raj's team looks in great shape for the Quadrangular Series after clinching its second Asia Cup title in 12 months, against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in Jaipur in December.

That Women's Asia Cup also saw the emergence of Thirush Kamini who, in her debut series, walked away with the Player of the Tournament award after scoring 135 runs at an average of 33.75.

Raj and Chopra are seventh and eighth respectively in the list of all-time ODI run-scorers. Raj has totaled 2,731 runs at 47.50 while Chopra has scored 2,409 runs at 35.95.

Raj was the fifth leading run-getter in the 2005 Women's World Cup with 199 runs while Chopra finished with 180 runs.

During the tournament, details can be found here

ICC Women's World Cup:

The 2009 ICC Women's World Cup to be staged in Australia will be the first to be played under the auspices of the ICC since its merger with the International Women's Cricket Council (IWCC) in 2005.

The Women's World Cup has been running for longer than the men's version and was first staged in England in 1973, when it was won by the hosts, which beat Australia by 118 runs in the final at Edgbaston, Birmingham.

Since then there have been a further seven tournaments with Australia winning five of them (1978, 1982, 1988, 1997 and 2005), England winning once more (in 1993) and New Zealand triumphing in 2000.

The tournament has been staged twice each in England (1973 and 1993), India (1978 and 1997) and New Zealand (1982 and 2000) as well as Australia (1988) and South Africa (2005).

The IWCC had 15 members and since integration the women's game has been growing fast. There are now 42 members with formal girls' and/or women's teams playing in structured cricket competitions.

A further 23 do not have competition teams yet but do have girls in junior development initiatives. That makes 65 of ICC's 97 members with some women's cricket and it is growing all the time.