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

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who represented the Dutch national team between 1978 and 1993, including as

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

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 List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city of the Netherlands, as well as the capital and the most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht. The ...

(featuring

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

and

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

), 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 One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

(ODI) match, a one-off fixture against

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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, 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 ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

, 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 an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

, 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 20th-century Dutch sportswomen