Naomi Elizabeth Stalenberg (born 18 April 1994) is an Australian

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 plays as a right-handed batter and right-arm

medium Medium may refer to: Aircraft *Medium bomber, a class of warplane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film * ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...

bowler. She represented

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

in domestic cricket beginning in 2013, and in 2016 she played a

Twenty20 International Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of Twenty20 cricket, in which each team plays a single innings with a maximum of twenty overs. The matches are played between international teams recognized by the International Cricket Council (ICC). ...

(T20I) for the

Australian national cricket team The Australia men's national cricket team represents Australia in international cricket. Along with England, it is the joint oldest team in Test cricket history, playing and winning the first ever Test match in 1877; the team also plays One ...

. In 2020 she was cut from New South Wales' squad and began playing for

Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...

. She has also played in the

Women's Big Bash League The Women's Big Bash League (WBBL) also known as Weber WBBL for sponsorship reasons, is the Australian professional Women's Twenty20 Cricket league. The WBBL replaced the Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup, which ran from the 2007–08 season ...

(WBBL) for the

Sydney Thunder The Sydney Thunder is an Australian franchise professional cricket team, competing in Australia's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition, the Big Bash League. Along with the Sydney Sixers, the Thunder is the successor to the Speed Blitz Blues, ...

and the

Hobart Hurricanes Hobart Hurricanes are an Australian professional men's Twenty20 franchise cricket team based in Hobart, Tasmania. They compete in Australia's domestic Big Bash League. The Hurricanes play the majority of their home matches at Ninja Stadium ...

Early life

Stalenberg was born in

Blacktown Blacktown is a suburb in New South Wales, Australia, west of the Sydney central business district. It is one of the most multicultural places within Sydney, Greater Sydney. History Before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, the area of ...

Greater Western Sydney Greater Western Sydney (GWS) is a large region of the metropolitan area of Greater Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia that generally embraces the north-west, south-west, central-west, far western and the Blue Mountains sub-regions with ...

on 18 April 1994. Her grandparents had immigrated to Australia from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. Stalenberg began playing sport at an early stage of her life. She started playing

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

at six years old and cricket at eight years old. She initially focused more on football and participated in the New South Wales state All Schools Championship. After high school, Stalenberg took a gap year and stayed 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 ...

in the Netherlands. Despite not speaking Dutch, she played for a local cricket team in the city and decided to pursue a career in cricket.

Cricket career

In the 2013/14 season, Stalenberg began playing domestic cricket in Australia, playing for

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 th ...

(WNCL). She also joined the

for the inaugural season of the

(WBBL) in 2015. Because of the low pay in women's cricket early in her career, Stalenberg split her time between studying at university, working at a hotel, training at nights and playing cricket on weekends. Stalenberg had a strong year in the 2015–16 WBBL season. She was one of the competition's fastest-scoring batters, scoring 160 runs at a

strike rate Strike rate refers to two different cricket statistics, statistics in the sport of cricket. Batting strike rate is a measure of how quickly a batsman, batter achieves the primary goal of batting (cricket), batting, namely scoring run (cricket), r ...

of 150.94 runs per 100 balls. As a result, she was selected as part of the Australian national cricket team's 15-player squad for a

(T20I) series against India in January 2016. Stalenberg appeared in one T20I against India on 26 January 2016, but Australia finished their run chase before she had a chance to bat, so she neither batted nor bowled in the match. In the 2016/17 season, Stalenberg was able to become a full-time cricketer as New South Wales began paying all of their players a full time wage. She had another strong year in 2017/18, but she was overlooked by the national team and instead played warm-up matches against the touring English team for a Cricket Australia XI. Playing for New South Wales, she won the Women's National Cricket League final for the fourth time, and at the end of the season she was called up again to the national team for the 2017–18 India women's Tri-Nation Series, but she did not play a match during the tournament. Stalenberg had her career-best season in the WNCL in 2019/20, scoring 255 runs in nine games for New South Wales, but at the end of the season she was cut from the team. During the 2020 winter she switched state teams and signed with

. She began playing for Tasmania in the WNCL and the

in the WBBL in the 2020/21 season.

References

External links

*
Naomi Stalenberg
at

Cricket Australia Cricket Australia (CA) is the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in Australia. It was originally formed in 1905 as the 'Australian Board of Control for International Cricket'. It is incorporated as an Australian Public Company ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stalenberg, Naomi 1994 births Australia women Twenty20 International cricketers Cricketers from Sydney Hobart Hurricanes (WBBL) cricketers Living people People from Blacktown, New South Wales New South Wales Breakers cricketers Northern Districts women cricketers Sydney Thunder (WBBL) cricketers Tasmanian Tigers (women's cricket) cricketers Sportswomen from New South Wales Australian people of Dutch descent