Australian all-rounder Karen Rolton dominated the South Australian Women's Cricket Association A grade grand final on 23 and 24 March as Port Adelaide won its second consecutive title.
Rolton, arguably the world's best female cricketer at this time, smashed 201 not out as Port crushed the Northern Districts Jets by the margin of 254 runs in the two-day season finale at the Women's Memorial Playing Fields, St Marys.
New Zealand umpire Kathy Cross achieved a new milestone in the men's game during the Second Test between the New Zealand men and England at the Basin Reserve, Wellington in March. The 44 year-old from Hutt Valley was appointed as fourth umpire for the Test, the first time that a woman has been included among the umpiring team for a men's international cricket match.
Tricia Langsford, captain of the Australian Under-23 women's cricket team in 1994, died in Sydney on March 16 following a long battle with multiple sclerosis. She was 30.
A promising all-rounder from New South Wales who was considered a future member of the senior Australian women's team, Trish Langsford was named Player of the Series in the 1991-92 national championships at the age of 20, having taken 17 wickets at 9.88 and scored 99 runs at 24.75. The 1992 edition of the "ABC Australian Cricket Almanac" named her as one of Australia's four women players of the year.
Australia Youth all-rounder Kris Britt scored an astonishing 344 not out in a 50-over match for Western District against North Canberra-Gungahlin in the ACT Women's Cricket competition on Sunday March 10. Her score is believed to be a world record for a limited-over game at senior club level or above, male or female.
South Africa has taken a 1-0 lead in their historic one-day series against India with a win in a rain-affected match at the North West Cricket Stadium, Potchefstroom, on Sunday March 11. The win, by 29 runs under the Duckworth-Lewis method of calculating revised targets, follows the washout of last Thursday's historic series opener at Lenasia.
The Indian women's cricket team commenced its first tour to the African continent when it flew into Johannesburg on Monday March 4. The tour is, in fact, the first official visit by any international women's team to South Africa since 1972.
So South Africa won the Australian one-day triseries for 2001-02. They defeated New Zealand 2-0 in the best-of-three final, and congratulations to them. We should be thankful to them, too, for sparing us from an episode that would have shown us just a little more evidence that cricket is nothing but a commodity for television.
Another blow has been dealt to the future of Test cricket in the women's game, with the decision to scrap the one-off Test between Sri Lanka and Pakistan which was scheduled to begin this Sunday.
At the request of the Pakistan Women's Cricket Control Association (PWCCA), the four-day Test, which was to have commenced at the Colts Ground, Colombo, on January 20, has been converted to three limited-over matches, to be played on Sunday 20, Tuesday 22 and Wednesday 23 January.
Pakistan will play one Test and three one-day internationals in Sri Lanka in January following the cancellation of the West Indies' tour.
The West Indies Women's Cricket Federation decided last month that they would not proceed with their tour of Sri Lanka and Pakistan because of security concerns related to geopolitical instability in the south Asian region.
The West Indies' plans for their first international tour since the 1997 Women's World Cup were shelved during November. The West Indies Women's Cricket Federation cancelled its tour of Sri Lanka, scheduled for January, and abandoned tentative plans for a visit to Pakistan immediately afterwards.
The war in Afghanistan, and broader concerns about security in Sri Lanka and globally, were given as the reasons for the cancellation of the tour. Pakistan have since agreed to play the tour dates in Sri Lanka vacated by the West Indians.
