Sarah Elliott

Sarah Jane Elliott (Edwards; born 4 January 1982) is an Australian former cricketer who played as a right-handed batter and right-arm leg break bowler.

Edwards made her senior debut for Victoria mid-way through the 2000–01 season soon after turning 19.

At this stage of her career, Edwards was a specialist batsman and did not bowl her first ball in senior cricket until six years later.

She was not productive with the bat in her first two seasons, and was dropped after making a duck in her only innings of the third season.

Up to this point, she had made only 165 runs at 11.00.

Edwards made was selected for the Victorian team for the national Under-19 tournament in January 2000, turning 18 during the early part of the competition.

She made 55 in the third match against South Australia and recorded her top-score of 89 against the Australian Capital Territory.

The Victorians won all of their seven matches except their round-robin match against New South Wales and the final against the same team.

Edwards scored 224 runs at 32.00.

At the start of the 2000–01 season, Edwards played in two Second XI matches for Victoria against New South Wales.

She scored 7 and 46 and earned a call-up into the senior team for the double-header against New south Wales in the Women's National Cricket League (WNCL).

She scored 9 and 8 as the Victorians lost both matches.

In the last match of the season against South Australia, she made 26 and ended the season with 46 runs at 11.50.

At this stage of her career, Edwards played purely as a batsman and did not bowl at all in competition.

Edwards registered her maiden half-century in the first match of the 2001–02 WNCL against Queensland, scoring 64 in a five-wicket win.

She went into a form slump after that, failing to reach 15 in her remaining nine innings for the season, including three consecutive ducks.

In the last two round-robin matches, against New South Wales, she made only five and seven in consecutive defeats, and when the teams met again a fortnight later for the finals series, she managed 13 and 5 as Victoria lost to the defending champions—who successfully chased down targets in both matches—2–0.

Playing in all of Victoria's matches, Edwards ended her season with 119 runs at 11.90.

These performances saw Edwards spend almost all of the 2002–03 season out of the state team; she made only one appearance, registering a duck against South Australia.

Victoria went on to defeat New South Wales 2–0 in the finals.

Up to this point she had a career average of 11.00.

She regained her place in the 2003–04 season but averaged less than 10.

Nevertheless, she was selected for the Australian Under-23 team and made 51 and 97 in matches against the Sri Lankan national team.

Edwards regained a regular position for Victoria in the 2003–04 WNCL season, but again had little impact in the ten matches.

Apart from 24 and 26 in the two matches against Western Australia, she failed to pass 15 in her six remaining innings, which included four scores below five.

In one match, she not allowed to bat even after the fall of the seventh wicket, being shielded by her team despite nominally being a specialist batsman.

Edwards made her breakthrough in the 2004–05 WNCL, scoring 281 runs, more than she had made in her first four seasons combined.

She appeared in three Test matches, 22 One Day Internationals and 14 Twenty20 Internationals for Australia between 2005 and 2014.

She played domestic cricket for Victoria, Melbourne Renegades and Adelaide Strikers.

She was selected for the 2005 tour of England, but was not selected in the Tests; she made her One Day International (ODI) debut in the last match but neither batted or bowled.

Edwards was then dropped from the national team and did not play for Australia again until a solitary ODI at the start of the 2006–07 season.

After scoring 332 runs in the WNCL season, she was given a consistent run in the national team for the first time, playing in just over half the matches during the year.

She made only 37 runs at 7.40 and spent most of the following season's international fixtures watching from the sidelines as a reserve, playing in only two ODIs.

Edwards started the 2008–09 season by making her top-score in ODIs, 96, in her only innings in the series against India.

However, she had a poor WNCL season with the bat, averaging 19.40.

Although she began bowling regularly for the first time at senior level, and was successful with 11 wickets, Edwards was dropped from the ODI team, missing the 2009 World Cup and World Twenty20.

In 2009–10 Edwards performed strongly with both bat and ball, scoring 300 runs and taking 14 wickets and was recalled to the national team.

She played in all eight ODI matches against New Zealand in the Rose Bowl series at the end of the season, the first time she had played a full series for the national team.

Edwards does not bowl regularly at international level as Lisa Sthalekar and Shelley Nitschke—who are also spin bowling all-rounders—are ranked among the top ten bowlers in the world and do most of the slow bowling for Australia.

She was a part of the team that won the 2010 World Twenty20, playing in all but one match.