Julie Hunter



Julie Lauren Hunter (born 15 March 1984) is a female cricketer who plays for Victoria and Australia. She is a right-handed pace bowler who also bats right-handed batsman.

After playing for the Australian Under-19 team in 2002–03, Hunter made her senior debut for Victoria in the Women's National Cricket League (WNCL) the following season. She was not trusted with much responsibility in her first season, and bowled less than 60% of the maximum possible quota of overs, and was dropped mid-way through the finals series against New South Wales, which was lost. After touring Sri Lanka with the Australian Under-23 team in September 2004, Hunter played in Victoria's triumphant 2004–05 WNCL team. After being attacked in the first final against New South Wales, she was dropped, but returned for the third match and scored 15 and took 2/13 to help seal the WNCL title. Hunter ended the season with nine wickets at 25.44.

Starting in 2005–06 Hunter struggled for four seasons, taking 8, 7, 6 and 8 wickets respectively, with her annual average and economy rate rising from 31.00 and 3.70 to 39.75 and 4.33 respectively. In 2009–10, Hunter had her most productive WNCL season, taking 14 wickets at 25.57 as well as 12 wickets at 7.58 in the Twenty20 competition.

She was rewarded by national selection for the first time for the Rose Bowl series against New Zealand. She made her ODI debut in the fifth match at the Junction Oval and took her career best figures of 3/40 in her third match on the New Zealand leg of the tour in Invercargill. Hunter has taken seven wickets from four ODIs. In the Twenty20 internationals, she took two wickets in two matches.

International debut
Hunter bowling in the nets.Hunter was rewarded with selection in the Australian squad for the Rose Bowl series against New Zealand. Australia won the first four home ODIs and Hunter did not debut until the fifth and final ODI at the Junction Oval, where she did not bat and then took 1/20 from seven overs and a catch in a 103-run win; Australia swept the series 5–0.

In the five T20s internationals that followed, three at Bellerive Oval in Hobart, and two in New Zealand, Hunter only played in the last two matches in New Zealand, taking 1/23 and 1/29 from four overs each. She made six in the fourth match, her first innings at international level as Australia lost by 59 runs. She made a duck in the final match as New Zealand won all five T20s.

 She then played in all three ODIs in New Zealand as fellow right-arm fast bowler Rene Farrell was left out. In the first match in Queenstown, she took 1/38 from ten overs. In the run-chase she made six not out at the death as Australia reached the target with two wickets in hand from the last ball of the match. She took 3/40 from eight overs in the second match, as Australia restricted the hosts to 8/255 before completing a six-wicket win. The following day, she took 2/35 in the final ODI, from only six overs in another six-wicket win in the last two matches at Invercargill. Hunter ended with six wickets at 18.83 at and economy rate of 4.70.

[edit] 2010 World Twenty20
Hunter was selected for the 2010 World Twenty20 in the West Indies but spent almost the entire tournament watching from the sidelines, playing in only the two warm-up matches. In the first warm-up match, against New Zealand, she took 0/19 from two overs as New Zealand made 136 and then did not bat as Australia made 5/118. In the second preparatory she took 1/17 from four overs as the Australians defeated Pakistan by 82 runs. Hunter was not used in the tournament itself, after succumbing to a shoulder injury, and the three pace bowlers used were Clea Smith, Ellyse Perry and Rene Farrell. Australia won all three group matches, and then the semi-final and final to take the tournament.