England opener Tammy Beaumont climbs to top of ICC ODI batting rankings

The 29-year old scored 231 in England’s recent series against New Zealand and hopes to open the batting in the upcoming T20s

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England opener Tammy Beaumont has ascended to the top of the ICC ODI batting rankings for the first time in her career.

The 29-year old scored 231 runs, including two unbeaten half-centuries, during England’s 2-1 series win over New Zealand and became just the sixth England Women’s player to amass 2,500 ODI runs.

She moved five places up the standings following these stellar performances and now sits above the likes of Meg Lanning (Australia), Stefanie Taylor (West Indies) and Alyssa Healy (Australia).

Continuing their white-ball tour of New Zealand, England will play a three-match T20 series in Wellington, scheduled to start on March 3, and Beaumont is eager to cement her position as opener in the shortest form of the game.

Beaumont batted in the middle order during England’s run to the semi-finals of the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup, scoring just 15 runs, but returned to the top of the order against West Indies and was England’s highest scorer during the 5-0 whitewash.

^{Beaumont (bat raised) celebrating the third of her three consecutive half-centuries against New Zealand}

“I went ok in the series against West Indies and it’s certainly where I prefer batting,” she said. “[But] I’ll do whatever is right for the team. We’ve got a really strong batting line-up, plenty of top order players. It’s a case of doing what the teams needs but I’d love to be opening tomorrow!”

The right-hander, who averages 22.29 in 88 T20 appearances, also backed fellow opener Danni Wyatt to make her mark in the upcoming series following a disappointing run in the ODIs – the 29-year old scored just 18 runs in three 50-over matches.

“It certainly suits her playing T20 cricket,” Beaumont said. “She’s so expansive and loves going out there to play her shots and it’s a role she plays really well for England and has done for a long time. Hopefully she can get a few runs in this series and get us off to a great start and I’ll get to watch her play some amazing innings.”

And, after securing victory in the ODI series, Beaumont is confident England can succeed in the T20s and use the series as a stepping stone ahead of the 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2023 T20 World Cup.

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“We got the series win in the ODIs and hopefully we can take that form into the T20s and play some really good cricket,” she said. “We’ve got a big year of T20 cricket next year so we’ve plenty of time to practise.

“We were building a really special team [at the 2020 T20 World Cup] and everyone is pretty much still in the squad so I think we’ll be trying really hard to up our game and maybe get to a World Cup final in the future."

England face New Zealand in the first of three T20s on Wednesday, March 3 with play scheduled to start at 2am GMT.

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