Suzie Bates

Suzie Bates is one of the finest white-ball cricketers New Zealand has produced, a player whose career has stretched across two decades at the top. Her batting is built on clean, powerful drives through the off side, and she has the rare ability to shift gears, accumulating with calm precision before unloading a flurry of boundaries. She is New Zealand's leading run-scorer in women's ODIs, has passed 5,000 runs in the format, and sits among the highest run-scorers in the history of women's T20 internationals.

A former basketball international who represented New Zealand at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bates brings an athlete's agility to the crease and to the field, where she takes sharp catches with casual ease. Her medium pace has offered a useful extra option over the years and produced timely breakthroughs. Named ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year in 2013, she captained the White Ferns for several years across formats before handing over the leadership in 2018. She has remained a mainstay since, and her long wait for a world title finally ended when New Zealand won the Women's T20 World Cup in 2024. In franchise cricket she has been a fixture at the Adelaide Strikers, winning back-to-back WBBL titles, while at home her experience continues to guide a new generation through the pressures of international cricket.