She’s the Dutch maestro Sterre-ing things up with the bat
In late 2020, Sterre Kalis was nominated by the ICC for their women’s Associate cricketer of the decade award. Little wonder. Two years earlier, the classy Netherlands batter had set a world record for the highest individual score in a women’s T20 international – 126 not out in a clash with Germany.
That record has since been broken by the likes of Meg Lanning and Alyssa Healy, and it now stands with Argentina’s Lucia Taylor, who scored 169 against Chile in October 2023. But Kalis is still high on that list, 11th in fact.
Kalis, who has represented her country 35 times, has been with the Diamonds since regional cricket started during the shortened Covid summer of 2020 and was offered professional terms ahead of 2022.
She is a versatile batter who bats in the top order in 50-over cricket – usually at three or four – and can open in T20 cricket.
Kalis, whose cricketing hero is South Africa legend Jacques Kallis, signed for the Diamonds on the back of former director of cricket James Carr’s previous involvement as a coaching consultant with the Dutch Cricket Board.
She was the Diamonds’ leading run-scorer in the first two seasons of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy (197 in 2020 and 290 in 2021).
In 2023, she went beyond 1,000 runs in all cricket for the Diamonds. And there is plenty more where that came from.
She warmed up for 2024 with a pre-Christmas spell of winter club cricket in Australia, playing for New Town in Tasmania.
UPDATED: Feb 2024.
