Sophie Ecclestone was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year for 2024. Raf Nicholson’s piece on Ecclestone originally appeared in the 2025 edition of Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack.
The Five Cricketers of the Year represent a tradition that dates back to 1889, making this the oldest individual award in cricket. The Five are picked by the editor, and the selection is based, primarily but not exclusively, on excellence in and/or influence on the previous English season. No one can be chosen more than once.
Sophie Ecclestone does not like to relive her performances, but there is one moment from the summer of 2024 she has watched a few times. On May 17 at Northampton, she held a return catch to dismiss Pakistan’s Muneeba Ali, who became her 115th victim in T20 internationals, making Ecclestone England’s leading wicket-taker in the format.
She isn’t good with stats, but others had already clocked that Ecclestone might pass the milestone that day, and a ceremony was hastily organised in the dressing-room after the match. As it happened, her parents – Elaine and Paul – were at Wantage Road, as was the previous record-holder, Katherine Sciver-Brunt. “Katherine was asked to say a few words,” says Ecclestone. “She was the only women’s cricketer I ever watched on TV growing up, so it was pretty special. She said she was surprised I didn’t do it earlier! It was a proud moment for me and my family. I got a picture with them – and the ball – after the game.”
That ball is now at her parents’ home near Chester, where her mum keeps the trophies and prizes Sophie has won: “My match awards, Women’s Premier League stuff, two PCA Women’s Player of the Year awards…” For a bowler aged just 25, it is a well-stocked cabinet.
For Ecclestone, the record came during a summer in which she was simultaneously ranked as the world’s No.1 in both white-ball formats. She was a vital cog in an England machine that went unbeaten for the entire home season of six one-day internationals and eight T20s. Her own haul was 26 wickets – 13 in each format – at 9.84, including 5-25 in the second ODI against New Zealand at Worcester, and 4-25 in the third T20 against them at Canterbury. Next in England’s wicket-taking list was seamer Lauren Bell, eight behind. Ecclestone went at barely three an over in ODIs, and at less than six in T20s. She was routinely excellent.
Two weeks after overtaking Sciver-Brunt, she broke another record, becoming the fastest woman to 100 ODI wickets – from 63 innings, one fewer than Australian fast bowler Cathryn Fitzpatrick. When Ecclestone finished with none for 30 in the fifth T20 against the New Zealanders at Lord’s in July, it broke a run of 34 international innings in which she had taken at least one wicket, the longest sequence in the women’s game.
SOPHIE ECCLESTONE was born on May 6, 1999, in Chester. She learned cricket at the Alvanley club in nearby Helsby, where – in a set-up run by her dad – she was the only girl in a boys’ team that included her older brother, James. She was originally a seamer, but Robin Fisher, club member and a former Minor Counties slow left-armer, taught her to bowl spin. “I bowled a couple of overs in an Under-11 game, and it went from there,” she says. Together, they fashioned the easy, repeatable action which has brought her such success. “I don’t remember ever trying to change anything in my action. I never thought about it. I don’t think I ever will.”
In 2013, she made her debut for Cheshire in the Women’s County Championship; two years later, she moved to Lancashire. She has stayed put, winning the double (the one-day and 20-over cups) with them in 2017, and captaining Manchester Originals in The Hundred. An impressive England Academy tour of Sri Lanka early in 2016 led to an international debut that July, aged 17, in a T20 against Pakistan. Her lone wicket (opener Sidra Amin, caught by Sciver-Brunt at deep midwicket) came from a full toss, but The Guardian noted her “commendable control”.
Her parents, with England coach Mark Robinson, decided she should focus on her school exams, which ruled her out of the 2017 World Cup, in which Alex Hartley was the first-choice left-arm spinner. At the end of the summer, Ecclestone walked straight out of Helsby High School with A-levels in PE, English and IT, and into a full England contract. “I hated school,” she says. “Now I got to play cricket for a living.”
She has been part of the England team ever since, launching herself to the top of the T20 rankings in March 2020, when she became the youngest woman to take 50 wickets in T20 internationals, and finishing as the leading wicket-taker at both the 50-over World Cup in New Zealand in 2021/22 (with 21 at 15), and the T20 World Cup in South Africa a year later (11 at seven). At 5ft 11in, she is tall for a spinner, giving her a high release point; the tricky bounce she generates is too much for many batters.
She may be the queen of white-ball bowling, but Ecclestone says Test cricket is her preferred format. “When I made my debut at 18 in Australia, my mum was crying on the pitch. I’ve played several now, and I always look forward to them – it’s so cool to be able to spend time working a batter out, then getting the rewards.” Her favourite wicket was Australia’s Alyssa Healy, for a duck, in the first innings at Trent Bridge in 2023: a trademark quicker ball which turned and skidded into off stump. England lost, but Ecclestone finished with figures of 10-192, sending down 77 overs in the space of four and a half days. Given the limited time women have to prepare for Tests, it was a staggering feat.
“I’m a massive competitor,” she says. “I love getting involved in the battle. I used to get really angry when I was younger – I think it was teenager vibes. Even now, when I haven’t taken wickets, I can get a little bit frustrated. I’ve given Heather [Knight] permission to come up to me and go: ‘Are you OK, babes?’ It makes me laugh, and brings me back down.”
There is also the fact that her mum’s groaning trophy cabinet still lacks a World Cup winner’s medal. “That drives me a lot,” she says. “Hopefully I can continue to take wickets, and stay No. 1 for as long as possible.”
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