Born on 9th April 1963 in Newcastle, NSW, former Test and ODI player for Australia, Sally Jane Griffiths was a demon quick bowler.
Sally burst onto the scene in 1984/85. Everyone gets excited when there’s a new fast bowler with genuine pace. In her First Class debut for NSW against the touring England team she bowled fourteen overs and took 3-8. Eleven of those overs were maidens.
In the same summer Sally made her international debut in an ODI match against New Zealand at Melbourne. She was bowled by Liz Signal for a duck, batting at number nine. Her response was a fiery nine overs where she took 3-17. The fast bowler had announced her arrival.
A Test debut came in 1987 at Worcester against England. Sally took 2-42 in the first innings, including bowling batting great Jan Brittin, three balls into her career. She bowled Brittin in the second innings too. Batting at number nine in Australia’s only innings, Sally shared a 60 run partnership with Lyn Fullston. This is significant.
Sally batted in the middle order in domestic cricket for NSW but such was the strength of the Australian batting that Sally languished in the bottom order. Over the course of her career, two things happened. Like two lifts sitting side by side, one going up, the other going down, Sally moved up the batting order for Australia and down the bowling order until she had morphed into a batter who rarely bowled.
By 1990 that transformation was evident when Sally made her highest score in Test cricket, 133 against New Zealand at Auckland. She shared a 181 run partnership with Debbie Wilson (92*) which is the highest eighth wicket partnership in women’s Tests.
Sally played seven Test matches for Australia and 32 ODIs which included appearances at the 1988 and 1993 World Cups.