Kristen Beams, born in Hobart Tasmania on 6th November 1984, is a leg-break bowler who played Test, ODI and T20I for Australia.
Kristen made her debut for Victoria in 2007/08 and by August 2014 was selected in Meg Lanning’s Australian ODI team to play Pakistan. She took 1-26 from her nine overs. In September of that same year Kristen made her T20I debut against the same opposition, taking 1-13 from her three overs.
Her inimitable style, her competitive nature, leads one to think she might have been a tearaway fast bowler wrapped inside a leg spinner’s body. With ball in hand, you always knew something was about to happen.
But it was with bat in hand she made her most important contribution in her one and only Test, against England in 2015. That same competitive nature batting at number 10, surviving 98 balls in 112 minutes as she made 26 not out to help Jess Jonassen rescue the Australian batting after an earlier collapse.
It’s white ball cricket however where Beams shone. She particularly enjoyed playing against Sri Lanka, against whom she took 4-15 in an ODI in September 2016, and 3-11 in a T20I match against the same team. On both occasions she won Player of the match.
In 30 ODIs she took 42 wickets at 22.45 and in 18 T20Is she took 20 wickets at 16.60. A fixture on the domestic T20 circuit, Beams played for Victoria, Essex, Loughborough Lightning and the Melbourne Stars.
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