Annabel Sutherland: Conjuring brilliance in a team of stars
She’s grown up in a cricket family and found her feet in an Aussie side filled with greats - but she might end up outshining them all
There was once a Sutherland from Victoria, tall, lanky, hitting the wicket hard. Then there was another Sutherland from Victoria, again, tall, lanky too, and was into the wicket as well. This was the father and son duo of James and Will Sutherland. The father struggled to get games in a stacked Victorian lineup, despite being a decent bowler. His son Will is already better, his batting helps too, but he’s become a first-choice bowler for the Vics, and has also played two ODIs for Australia. That would be enough for any family, especially as the father Sutherland also went on to run Cricket Australia for two generations. But neither of the male Sutherlands are anywhere near the level of the youngest professional Sutherland, Annabel.
She has all the skills of her father and brother, but Annabel is just better. She was just hidden by an entire cricket family.
And the same is true of her in the Australian side. She doesn’t get the new ball, she doesn’t bat up the order, but she has become like a final boss. If you manage to get through the rest of the greatest team in the world, the Sutherland named Annabel is pure horror.
“I think hitting straight has sort of always been a strength of mine. I think growing up, (I was) always taught to bat quite technically correctly, so I think that plays well into being able to hit straight.”
Sutherland had said in an interaction with the cricket.com.au YouTube channel.
When I think of Sutherland, that is what I think of. Technical correctness. With bat or ball. The first match I saw her bowl there was little pace, but she was troubling the batters. The reason was bounce. She is tall, but also uses that height. With her batting, it is the same thing. Her big front stride gets her closer to the ball, then the long levers come through straight and launch the ball down the ground.
A look at her scoring zones in ODI cricket tell us that a whopping 43.2% of all her runs have come in the V. She’s a coaching manual come to life, but with the power and skill to pull it off. Not many can do this in ODIs.
Last year, she scored the fastest double hundred in the history of women’s Tests against South Africa at the WACA. That was her second Test hundred in only eight innings.
The only batter with more Test runs at a higher average since her debut is Smriti Mandhana. She is perhaps the sixth, seventh, or even eighth-best bat in Australia, and this is what we are seeing. Imagine getting four wickets on a hot day and then she walks in with those numbers.
That is like beating someone in a hand-to-hand battle, and then winning, only to see King Kong strolling up.
She is a beast in ODIs too, yet her career has barely started. Only four Australian batters have scored more runs, and just five bowlers have taken as many or more wickets till the age of 23 in ODI cricket. We don’t always see allrounders dominate on both sides of the ball when they start out in international cricket.
Do you notice the other players on both graphs? That’s right, Ellyse Perry and Ash Gardner. Perry batted lower when she came in. Gardner was more of a hitter. Sutherland has come in at this level, and never really stuttered. She batted at nine once, since then she has been top seven. She has always bowled for them, even if she is fighting for overs against the best bowlers in the world.
Sutherland had a significant impact across all three formats last year, despite not getting a lot of chances up the order or with the new ball. Her issue is not trying to beat the opposition - that usually happens - it is fighting for a spot up the order or with more balls. Yet, she’s standing out.
Batting at number seven, Sutherland brought up her first ODI fifty against England in June 2023, in her ninth innings. Just over a week later, she opened the batting. She made a ton.
It’s quite possible that on a worse team, she’d be better.
Since the ODI series against India earlier this summer, she has gotten consistent chances at No.5. She made back to back tons against India and New Zealand - coming in at 3 for 72 and 3 for 107 respectively. The opposition would probably prefer she be hidden again.
She has a true average of 19 and a true strike rate of 14 since the start of 2023, with her nearest neighbours on this graph being Amy Jones, Ellyse Perry, Beth Mooney, Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur - some of the top players in the world for their respective roles. To do this at 23, when you’re an allrounder, makes her a special cricketer.
Her highest true average is against left-arm finger spin, though she strikes at 28 less than expected. She scores the quickest against right-arm finger spin, and is great against wrist spin on both metrics. Her true average is above 20 against right-arm pace.
The only pacer with a better true wickets record than Sutherland is Shabnim Ismail. Additionally, Sutherland also concedes 0.41 runs less than par. These are incredible numbers for an allrounder who bowls about five overs per match.
So either she’s getting the best of the overs - which is unlikely - or she could actually do more damage with the ball.
But this is the kicker, she has never had to bowl 10 overs in a match. This means she’s a fifth or sixth bowler who takes wickets like the best strike bowler in the game, and they don’t even let her bowl out.
She delivers about 17 balls per match in T20 cricket. From 2021 to 2024, she averaged less than 23 in each calendar year.
In this period, her economy rate was also less than 6.5 in two of the years, and above eight only once.
In 2024, she became frugal - being one run an over better than usual on true economy. But in 2022 and 2023, she was a legit strike weapon. Back in 2021, she combined both. So you have a tall pacer who can take wickets and also not be hit. What kind of predator can she be, when she works out both at the same time?
She’s a middle overs destroyer, with a true economy and wickets of 0.52 and 0.17 respectively. Her career record at the death is not great so far, but she was excellent in that phase in the last T20 World Cup. She has not handled the powerplay yet. Australia can afford to use her when suits because of their endless options. But with her action, she will eventually work out the new ball too. She’s still a prospect, imagine when she is at her best.
She had a decent T20 year with the bat too in 2024 - performing better than the par on true average and strike rate. She is better at staying in than scoring fast usually.
Looking at her stats, she might be best used when early wickets fall in a floating role, until she works out how to score in more places around the ground.
The issue is that she needs to find a position as she develops. The floating option is basically how Australia have been using her. So even she may not know what she’s best at right now.
She was the Player of the Tournament in the 2024 Hundred, where she made 212 runs at a strike rate of 138 and took 10 wickets at an economy of just 4.53 in seven matches. Deepti Sharma’s true average of 195 skews the graph.
So here’s a look at the same graph excluding her. Sutherland had the sixth-highest true strike rate of all batters that faced at least 100 balls, and she was in the top ten in terms of true average as well.
She was by far the most economical bowler in the tournament, conceding 3.83 runs less than the expected value, which is incredible. According to the true stats, she was the best bowler of the tournament and at the very least, one of the top ten batters. What an outstanding all-round cricketer.
She followed it up with a huge effort in a World Cup that Australia didn’t even win. Only Megan Schutt and Amelia Kerr beat her on both true wickets and economy.
She’s also become a huge attacker of the stumps. In the T20 World Cup and Hundred last year, she had a combined 13 wickets from bowled and LBW out of her 19 in total. Stumps, beware.
This is new, showing that her machine is learning and improving. Compared to the last three years, 2024 was definitely an outlier. Imagine her ceiling if she keeps working out new methods like this.
The mode of dismissals by each format suggest that she gets her wickets in this manner most frequently in T20 cricket, then ODIs, and finally Tests. Keeper catches are most common for her in Test cricket, which adds up given the nature of the format.
As we said, she’s been one of the best Test batters since her debut - even though women’s Tests are not played frequently enough. But she has also picked up 13 wickets in five Tests at an average of 25.23. The other pacers in her team have taken 34 wickets at 32.41, while the opposition pacers have 42 wickets at 33.59. She has bowled 12.6% of the team’s overs, so she’s a fifth or even sixth option, with a first choice record.
And that is the thing, she is a down-the-order batter and non-full time bowler, yet she muscled her way into the nominees for the ICC’s Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy. That is the award for the best women’s cricketer of the year.
She will get to play her sixth Test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Her ground, where her brother and father played and she watched the footy growing up. But it is something more for women cricketers, as this is the first Test there since 1949.
This is a big deal at a huge ground for a massive player.
She is such an important player for Australia if they want to continue their global dominance. Their transition period can be built on her back. At worst, they have a team with seven batters and five bowlers just because she exists. That is an enormous impact.
That is really the floor of what she can be. Because of her athleticism, technical skill and ability to adapt, she could be one of the world’s best with bat and ball, for a generation.
Just as the Australian legends start to retire is when Annabel Sutherland will really be unleashed. Australia might have another great. Everyone else will have their worst nightmare.