Follow UsWomen’s cricket worldwide is blessed with some top quality pace bowling all-rounders at the moment. Ellyse Perry, Annabel Sutherland, Fatima Sana, Marizanne Kapp, Deandra Dottin, Chinelle Henry, Sophie Devine, Nat Sciver-Brunt etc are some of the names on top.
Amongst these, Perry is the undisputed GOAT - someone who was there when the rule book of what a modern women cricketer looks like was made, and someone who was also there when women’s cricket took its most significant leap through the insinuation of franchise T20 leagues worldwide.
It’s safe to say that most other proper pace bowling all-rounders — anyways, a rare category of a cricketer — have lived in the shadows of her bonafide greatness. The Women’s Premier League (WPL) hasn’t been untouched by it either. Perry scores at an average above 60 in the league, and her bowling won Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) their first-ever trophy in 2024.
However, there’s one such fast bowling all-rounder in the WPL who has not only surpassed Perry in terms of the runs she has scored but also has made a significantly greater impact with the ball in hand. That cricketer is Natalie Sciver-Brunt.
Sciver-Brunt has been around in women’s T20I cricket since 2013 and has been the backbone of the English side without making a big fuss about it. She bats in the top order with an average near 30 and striking around 120, then comes and bowls her quota of overs at an average of 23.28, with an economy of 6.61, and picks a wicket every 21.1 deliveries on average.
Sciver-Brunt would have been more hyped in international cricket if there weren’t many pace-bowling all-rounders in the women’s cricket world with numbers in the same range. If there’s any doubt, just imagine a men’s cricketer with similar numbers in T20I cricket. It’s probably hard to imagine because very few teams in the world have such cricketers.
However, this 2025 edition of the WPL, where Sciver-Brunt not only drove the Mumbai Indians to their second title but also was the Most Valued Player of the season, is destined to change that image.
Sciver-Brunt isn’t only an excellent all-rounder anymore. She has stamped her authority on greatness.
WPL is a 10-game-a-season league if your team reaches the final. If not, the league stages are eight games long. Sciver-Brunt scored 523 runs in one season this year! And it wasn’t just the number of runs that was mind-boggling — she scored at an average of 65.37 and a strike rate of 152.5 while bowling 34 overs (!!!), and picking 12 wickets as well at an average of 22.5 while striking every 17th delivery on an average.
Like calm your breath and process these numbers for a second. Three players together could have achieved these numbers and a team would have included all three of them in their first XI. They are that good. The second-highest scorer, Perry, scored 151 fewer runs (in eight innings).
Keeping aside the impact of these numbers, just a cursory comparison of Perry and Sciver-Brunt’s numbers across the three seasons will tell you that while Perry has been more consistent with the bat (Sciver-Brunt had a poor batting season in 2024), the English all-rounder has been leading the bowling efforts as well, something Perry has done only occasionally in the league (although in big knockouts).
Even as a batter, Sciver-Brunt is the only one to cross 1000 runs in the league, with Perry trailing her closely. Safe to say, the Tokyo-born English isn’t just out of Perry’s shadow for the first time in longer than a decade. Sciver-Brunt has surpassed Perry and all others as the best all-rounder of the WPL, despite the competition being as choke full of them as a Koi pond is with fish.
The impact of her performances was clearly seen in the final yesterday, March 15, where after scoring *only* 30 of 28 with the bat, she cleaned up Meg Lanning in the powerplay with a peach and then dismissed Marizanne Kapp too, with her well-disguised change up deliveries. She ended up with figures of 3/30 in four overs. The result of such a performance was that Harmanpreet Kaur was lifting her second WPL trophy a few minutes later.
Sciver-Brunt’s wife, the England pacer Katherine Sciver-Brunt, was pregnant while she was busy winning MI the trophy. Even the legend Jhulan Goswami couldn’t stop marvelling at the 32-year-old’s commitment.
Speaking after Mumbai’s second WPL title win, Jhulan lauded Sciver-Brunt’s saying, “We all know her partner is expecting (a baby). To come here, take leadership and dominate - it is not easy.”
After all, this is what champions are made of. A poor Women’s Ashes before the WPL could have derailed Sciver-Brunt’s season. But no. The woman that she is, the intense hunger to perform, was visible as she remained extremely busy at the crease, improved her six-hitting, and cannily employed her variations while bowling.
It isn’t easy to be the best fast-bowling all-rounder in women’s cricket today. But Nat Sciver-Brunt stamped her authority on this WPL, already hoisting herself up as a great of the game.
