Charlotte Edwards

Charlotte Marie Edwards (born 17 December 1979) is an English former cricketer and current cricket coach and commentator.

She played primarily as a right-handed batter.

Edwards was born on 17 December 1979 in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and grew up on a farm near Pidley.

Her father, Clive Edwards, played for Huntingdonshire County Cricket Club (as did her uncle Hugh and later her brother Daniel).

She played her first club cricket at Ramsey Cricket Club in Huntingdonshire, and later captained one of the youth sides.

She attended Ramsey Abbey School, a comprehensive school.

Edwards played her first county cricket match in 1994, for East Anglia against East Midlands in the Women's Area Championship, in which she took 2/34 from 11 overs and scored 25 runs.

She was the side's leading run-scorer that season, with 186 runs including 77* made against Surrey Second XI.

She appeared in 23 Test matches, 191 One Day Internationals and 95 Twenty20 Internationals for England between 1996 and 2016.

She played domestic cricket in England for East Anglia, Kent, Hampshire and Southern Vipers, as well as overseas for Northern Districts, Western Australia, Perth Scorchers, South Australia and Adelaide Strikers.

Edwards is considered one of the most significant figures in women's cricket.

At the time of her international debut in 1996, in a Test match against New Zealand, she was the youngest woman to play for England.

She made her maiden List A century in 1996, scoring 113 against East Midlands.

In 1997, the day before her 18th birthday, she scored what remains the highest score for an English player in a Women's One Day International (WODI), scoring 173* against Ireland.

She has the second most appearances in Women's Test matches, and the most appearances for England in WODIs.

She is also England's second-leading run-scorer in Women's Test matches, and all-time leading run-scorer in both WODIs and Women's Twenty20 Internationals (WT20Is).

She was the leading run-scorer in the 1998 Women's County Championship, with 394 runs including three centuries.

Edwards played for East Anglia until the end of the 1999 season, including in the first three seasons of the Women's County Championship, which was instituted in 1997.

Edwards joined Kent ahead of the 2000 season.

She was the leading run-scorer in the Women's County Championship in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2011 and 2014.

She captained the side once in her first season, before becoming the regular captain of the side in 2002 until she departed the club at the end of the 2016 season.

Her highest score in county cricket came in 2002, scoring 151* for Kent against Middlesex.

Edwards first captained England in 2005, and was appointed as captain of the national side permanently in 2006, following the retirement of Clare Connor.

During her time with Kent, the side would win the Women's County Championship in 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2016, and the Women's Twenty20 Cup (which began in 2009) in 2011, 2013 and 2016.

She was also the leading wicket-taker in the Women's County Championship in 2006, and the leading run-scorer in the Women's Twenty20 Cup in 2010.

She was named ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year in 2008, and PCA Women's Player of the Year and a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2014.

She was awarded an MBE in 2009 and a CBE in 2014.

In 2022, she was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

England went on to win the 2009 Women's Cricket World Cup, the 2009 ICC Women's World Twenty20 and three outright Ashes series under her leadership.

She also scored 151, dismissed, against Sussex in 2014.

She remained captain of the side until the side's exit from the 2016 ICC Women's World Twenty20, after which she was told she was not part of the side's future plans: she subsequently retired from international cricket.

After winning the County Championship and Twenty20 Cup double with Kent in 2016, Edwards announced that she was leaving the club.

She continued playing domestic cricket for Hampshire and Southern Vipers before announcing her retirement from all cricket in September 2017, playing her final match in June 2018 for Hampshire.

A week later, it was announced that she was joining Hampshire, a side she would represent for two seasons, in 2017 and 2018 (including as captain in 2018).

During her time with the club, they were promoted from Division 2 of the Women's County Championship in 2017 before winning Division 1 a season later, in 2018.

Following her playing career, she became Director of Women's Cricket at Hampshire in 2018.

She became head coach of her former team Southern Vipers in 2020, and led them to the first two Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy titles.

She also coaches Southern Brave in The Hundred, Sydney Sixers in the Women's Big Bash League and Mumbai Indians in the Women's Premier League.

In 2021, the new English domestic women's Twenty20 competition, the Charlotte Edwards Cup, was named after her in recognition of her contribution to English cricket, with Southern Vipers first winning the trophy named after their coach in 2022.

She also regularly appears as a commentator on cricket for Sky Sports, and was appointed president of the Professional Cricketers' Association in 2021.