CHENNAI: Ellyse Perry has been around forever 15 years to be precise. She has been a part of all six T20 and three ODI World Cup-winning Australian squads since 2010, including the latest one that concluded at Newlands Cricket Stadium, Cape Town on February 26. And yet, she is only 32. To call her one of the GOATs of the sport would not be an understatement.
In the 2010 T20 World Cup, where Australia won their first title, Perry put her foot down to stop the ball in the final over of her own bowling to deny Sophie Devine and New Zealand a world title. 13 years on, she has taken the field in the Women's Premier League as Devine's teammate at the Royal Challengers Bangalore. In fact, she was there at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore as a part of the age-group New South Wales squad to witness the first-ever men's IPL game. One would call it a full circle, but not Perry.
"I hope it is not a full circle yet," Perry told this daily on Saturday. "I would like to keep playing for a bit longer if they want me around. It is funny how things happen throughout your career. I have played against Soph for a long period of time, but I have also had the chance to play with her at the Birmingham Phoenix in The Hundred as well."
Funnily enough, it was The Hundred last year that became a turning point of sorts in her T20I career. At that point, her place in the playing XI of the Australian side was on the radar, especially with her role as a batter coming into question. However, as she has done all through her career, Perry reinvented herself to show the world that she is just not done yet. Since 2022 The Hundred, Perry has been striking at a rate of 156.66 in T20Is, making her undroppable.
And now, she is in India for the WPL, playing for the same team she watched from the stands 15 years ago. When Indian players travel to play in the WBBL or The Hundred, where they find themselves in a much more relaxed atmosphere, trying to learn from their time there. For Perry and the other overseas stars in India, that is not the case. They are always in the limelight with pressure on them to deliver every single time. "It is just a different level here. Interest in cricket in India is higher than anywhere else in the world. Even now, we have got two buses full of people to go to training, in Australia we struggle to fill one bus. There are just so many people around. Sometimes you try to make sense of it while other times it is completely awesome," she said.
Despite the sublime form she is in, the luck hasn't been in favour of Perry so far in the WPL. A 19-ball 31 in the first game before playing one onto the stumps against Delhi followed by an unfortunate run out (13 off 7 balls) versus Mumbai Indians on Monday. The results haven't gone her and her team's way in the first two games, but as we have seen in the past, one could never write off Perry. The tournament still has a long way to go, and as Perry says, she is nowhere close to being done.
Brief scores: RCB 155 in 20 ovs (Richa 28, Shreyanka 23; Matthews 3/28) lost to MI 159/1 in 14.2 ovs (Matthews 77 n.o, Natalie 55 n.o).