Kristen Maree Beams (born 6 November 1984) is an Australian former

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 striki ...

player. Beams played one

Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

, thirty

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

s and eighteen

Twenty20 International A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...

s for the

Australia national women's cricket team The Australian women's national cricket team (formerly also known as the Southern Stars) represent Australia in international women's cricket. Currently captained by Meg Lanning and coached by Shelley Nitschke, they are the top team in all worl ...

between 2014 and 2017.

Cricket career

Beams began her domestic cricket career playing for

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

in the

Women's National Cricket League The Women's National Cricket League (WNCL) is the national domestic 50-over competition for women's cricket in Australia. Featuring seven teams—one from every state, plus the Australian Capital Territory—each season's winner is awarded the ...

(WNCL). In the 2013–14 WNCL season, she took 14 wickets at an average of 13.21 to lead the wicket-takers for the competition. During the season she also played tour matches against the visiting English team. In July 2014, she was added into the Australian national team's squad for the first time, ahead of a series against Pakistan. During the series, she made both her

(ODI) and

(T20I) debuts, on 26 August and 3 September respectively. She starred in the following series against the West Indies when, in just her third T20I, she took three wickets and had the best bowling figures for the Australian team. In June 2015, she was named as one of Australia's touring party for the 2015 Women's Ashes in England, putting her in line for a

Test cricket Test cricket is a form of first-class cricket played at international level between teams representing full member countries of the International Cricket Council (ICC). A match consists of four innings (two per team) and is scheduled to last fo ...

debut. She played her first and only Test match against England at

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, starting on 11 August 2015. She scored 26 runs without being dismissed in her sole batting innings, but only bowled 11 overs for the match and did not take any wickets. Beams had a strong year in 2016, and was Australia's leading wicket-taker in ODIs for the year up to November 2016. In Australia's tour of Sri Lanka, she took 13 wickets at a "stunning" average of 5.92, and took her career best figures in both ODIs (4/15) and T20Is (3/11). In an ODI against

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

in November 2016, Beams bowled four overs before breaking her finger. She left the field for medical treatment, but with her finger still broken she returned to the field and bowled two more overs, taking the wicket of

Lizelle Lee Lizelle Lee (born 2 April 1992) is a South African cricketer who played for the South Africa women's national cricket team from 2013 to 2022. She has played for Western Storm and Surrey Stars in the Women's Cricket Super League, as well as Mel ...

. After the match she was ruled out of the rest of the series due to the injury. Beams continued to play for Australia through 2017. She was Australia's leading wicket taker in the 2017 Women's Cricket World Cup in England, but in the Australian summer she only played one match in the ODI portion of the 2017–18 Ashes series. She was dropped from the team altogether for the sole Test match of the series when Australia opted to go with only one spin bowler (

Amanda-Jade Wellington Amanda-Jade Wellington (born 29 May 1997) is an Australian cricketer. She bowls right-arm leg spin and plays for the South Australian Scorpions in the Women's National Cricket League (WNCL) and the Adelaide Strikers in the Women's Big Bash Leag ...

). In March 2018, following the conclusion of the 2017–18 Women's National Cricket League season,

Cricket Victoria Cricket Victoria (CV) is the governing body for the sport of cricket in the Australian state of Victoria. It was formed on 29 September 1875 as the Victorian Cricket Association. It is integrated with the Victorian Women's Cricket Association to ...

named her the player of the season, awarding her the Sharon Tredrea Award, but in April 2018 the national team chose not to renew her contract, and she never returned to the national team. On 1 December 2019, she announced her retirement from cricket.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beams, Kristen 1984 births Australia women One Day International cricketers Australia women Twenty20 International cricketers Living people Melbourne Stars (WBBL) cricketers Victoria women cricketers Loughborough Lightning cricketers Australia women Test cricketers Australian expatriate sportspeople in England Cricketers from Launceston, Tasmania Sportswomen from Tasmania