Born on 30th January 1964 in Sydney, New South Wales, former Test and ODI cricketer for Australia, Denise Annetts batter in Australia’s top three during the mid 1980s and early 1990s.
Making her First Class debut for NSW in 1983/84, batting in the middle order, Denise showed steady progress and finished the Australian Women’s Cricket Championships that season with two half centuries to her name.
National duties came in 1984/85 in the Australian ODI team against New Zealand. She opened the batting and finished 26 not out chasing the White Ferns’ total of 58. It was the first of 49 ODI performances which included two World Cups, in 1988 and 1993. Denise scored 1126 runs at 41.70 with one century and eight fifties. Yet as good as those numbers are her performances in Test cricket are even better.
Denise played in her Test match debut in Lyn Larsen’s team against England in 1987. She would play all of her Tests under that captain. Larsen’s career of ten Test matches as captain is unmatched in Australia. She never lost a Test and won five. There’s a good reason for that for she had one of the best top threes of all time in Belinda Clark, Belinda Haggett and Denise Annetts.
One immediately thinks of the two Belindas, for their records are excellent. How about Annetts? Ten Tests, 819 runs with a Test average of 81.90 and a top score of 193. That is top shelf in anybody’s language.