Anita van Lier (married name Beecheno-van Lier; born 19 April 1952) is a Dutch former international

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er who represented the Dutch national team between 1978 and 1993, including as captain for a number of years. Van Lier made her debut for the Netherlands in 1978, on a tour of England. Her first international appearances came at the 1983 Centenary Tournament in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

(featuring

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

and

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

), by which time she had been appointed captain. In August 1984, van Lier was named captain of the Dutch team for their maiden One Day International (ODI) match, a one-off fixture against

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the national federation.Women's ODI matches played by Anita Beecheno-van Lier
– CricketArchive. Retrieved 16 April 2016. She opened the batting with

Irene Schoof Irene Schoof (born 1963) is a Dutch former cricketer. In her career from 1984 to 1999, she played fifteen Women's One Day International matches for the Netherlands women's national cricket team. She was part of the Netherlands squad for the 1988 ...

, scoring 45 runs out of a team total of 117 as the Netherlands lost by 67 runs. At the 1986 Women's Quadrangular in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

, which included Denmark, England A, Ireland, and the Netherlands, van Lier was the overall leading run-scorer. She finished with 174 runs from three innings, including 56 against Ireland and 100 not out against Denmark. Captaining the Netherlands at the 1988 World Cup in Australia, van Lier made 159 runs from eight innings, with a highest score of 46 against Ireland. She was the only Dutchwoman to score more than 100 runs during the tournament. She also bowled the third-highest number of overs for her team, taking three wickets. Van Lier relinquished the captaincy after the World Cup, and did not return to the national line-up until the 1993 World Cup in England, by which time she was 39. However, she had lost none of her form from the previous tournament, finishing as her team's leading wicket-taker and third highest run scorer. Against the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

, she took 4/24 from 8.4 overs, helping the Dutch team to its only victory of the tournament.Netherlands Women v West Indies Women
Women's World Cup 1993 – CricketArchive. Retrieved 16 April 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lier, Anita van 1954 births Living people Dutch women cricket captains Dutch women cricketers Netherlands women One Day International cricketers