New Zealand skipper is top totty

The New Zealand women’s captain, Aimee Watkins, has been given an unexpected ego boost ahead of her country’s World Twenty20 campaign, after being nominated by the website Yahoo!Xtra as one of the world's sexiest sportswomen.

Watkins, 27, has been rated in the top 64 among female athletes, alongside the American skier Lindsay Vonn, Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice and Czech tennis player Nicole Vaidisova.

"I didn't know anything about it," Watkins told The Dominion Post. "I've seen it now. Mum gave me a call and she was pretty excited and told me to go on and have a look. Since then I've had a bit of stick but, oh well. It's all a bit foreign to me."

Most of Watkins’ thoughts, however, are focussed on the forthcoming event in the Caribbean, in which New Zealand hope to go one better than they achieved in England last summer, when they finished as runners-up to the hosts in a one-sided final at Lord’s.