Claire Taylor

Samantha Claire Taylor (born 25 September 1975) is a former cricketer who represented England more than 150 times between 1998 and 2011.

A top order batter, Taylor was the first woman to be named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year.

Samantha Claire Taylor was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire on 25 September 1975, as part of a sporting family: her father played rugby, and her mother played hockey.

She attended Dolphin School in Hurst, Berkshire, where she initially played softball, participating as the only girl in the school team.

Taylor did not play cricket until a summer camp at the age of 13, but thereafter improved to such a level that she captained the Dolphin School cricket team, playing alongside the boys.

She subsequently moved to The Abbey School, Reading for a short time, and finally Kendrick School.

Although she primarily played hockey as a teenager, at which she represented England at Under-17 and Under-19 as a forward, she began playing women's county cricket for Thames Valley, making her debut for the side in May 1993.

Taylor was awarded a place at The Queen's College, Oxford to study Mathematics in 1994.

At Oxford, Taylor earned three blues for hockey, and three half blues for cricket.

She also played for the college men's cricket team, which included Iain Sutcliffe, who later played over three hundred county cricket matches.

During her time at Oxford, Taylor continued to play for Thames Valley, and scored her maiden century in the women's County Championship, scoring 109 runs against Lancashire and Cheshire in July 1996.

Her highest score prior to that innings had been 37.

The following year, having graduated from Oxford with a second-class honours degree, Taylor scored successive half-centuries for Thames Valley, reaching 97 against Sussex, 77 against Lancashire and Cheshire, and an unbeaten 62 against East Midlands.

She had been making intermittent appearances for England at various age group levels for the previous five years, and in September 1997, she scored 85 for England Under-21s against the touring South African side.

Even so, she was not included in the team for the 1997 Women's Cricket World Cup, but she was named as a non-travelling reserve, something that Taylor said "confirmed to me my breakthrough into the senior squad."

She made her international debut in 1998, and within two years was a regular in the team.

In April 1998, Taylor travelled to South Africa as part of the England Under-21 squad that competed in the women's Inter-Provincial Tournament, scoring two half-centuries in the competition.

Her full international debut occurred later that year, during the fourth One Day International (ODI) between England and Australia.

Playing as a specialist batsman, Taylor scored one run during a heavy defeat for England.

Taylor finished the 1998 women's County Championship with two strong batting performances: she struck her second century, scoring 103 runs against West, followed by 65 runs against Surrey.

Towards the end of the English season, she kept wicket for England in a match against England Under-21s, scoring an unbeaten 45 runs.

She retained her place in the England squad for the series against the touring Indian team in 1999.

England struggled in the series, and Taylor was one of a number of inexperienced players in the squad who "failed to seize their chance", according to the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack report.

Taylor's highest score in the series was 12 runs, and she had batting averages of 11.00 in the ODIs, and 5.50 in the solitary Test match.

During the subsequent English winter of 1999–2000, Taylor was part of the touring party that travelled to Australia and New Zealand for nine ODIs.

The tour was a failure for the team: they lost all nine international matches, and their only win was a warm-up match against Wellington, in which Taylor scored 83 runs.

She secured another half-century in the second ODI against New Zealand, scoring 56 runs after opening the innings.

In a series in which England's batting was described as dismal, her half-century was one of only two in ODIs during the tour, and Wisden reported that giving Taylor an "overdue opportunity" was one saving grace of the trip.

After an unsuccessful World Cup in 2000, Taylor left her job to become a full-time cricketer.

She struggled for runs in the series against the touring South Africans in 2000, aggregating 68 runs from five innings, as once again the English batting – particularly the top order – was criticised.

After the conclusion of the series, Taylor struck a century in a county match, scoring 115 runs for Berkshire against Surrey.

England's "slide down the international ladder" continued during the 2000 Women's Cricket World Cup, according to Wisden.

Over the subsequent five years, she developed into one of the leading batsmen in women's cricket, but after another failure in the 2005 World Cup she resumed her career alongside cricket.

Despite her struggles at the World Cup, Taylor continued to improve as a batsman, and in 2006, she scored 156 not out, the highest individual total in an ODI at Lord's Cricket Ground.

Her batting successes resulted in her being short-listed for the ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year in 2007 and 2008, and she won the award in 2009.

Along with Charlotte Edwards, she was the mainstay of England's batting during the first decade of the 21st century, and played a key role in the team's two world titles in 2009.

Taylor did not play cricket until the age of 13, but four years later made her county debut.

Initially considered a wicket-keeper with limited batting ability, Taylor struggled to break into the England team.

After being the leading run-scorer in the 2009 World Cup, and player of the tournament in the World Twenty20 later that year, she was less consistent from 2010, though she performed well in the pair of quadrangular tournaments played in England during her final summer of cricket, and completed her career with batting averages in excess of 40 in both Test and ODI cricket.

In July 2018, she was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.