In terms of sporting provenance stories, having a national cricket board CEO for a father doesn’t hit the inspirational high notes. James Sutherland spent two decades at the top for Cricket Australia and, like some players, probably held on a few years too long. When he did make way, it at least partially cleared the air for his children, Annabel and Will, to pursue playing careers.
No doubt being connected to power in the game opened plenty of doors and gained access to the best development. It gave them a life so entwined with cricket, perhaps attempting to play it was inevitable. The one drawback to all these advantages would be on reaching the top level, where perhaps a player has to do more to justify their presence.
So far, the Sutherlands have. At 23, Will has been captaining Victoria, producing memorable performances, and would be close to national selection if Cameron Green didn’t have a lock on the all-rounder’s spot in the men’s Test team. Annabel is younger at 21 but has already been playing for Australia for more than three years, a period crowned on Friday by her first Test century in the Women’s Ashes here.
It was an innings vital to Australia’s chances in the match, after Ellyse Perry was caught in the gully for 99. On a pitch full of runs, a score on 238 for six batting first threatened underachievement. Sutherland made sure that wasn’t the case, bedding down for long stays with Ashleigh Gardner, Alana King, and Kim Garth, adding 238 for the last four wickets to finish on 137 not out.
She became the 10th Australian to score a Test century from No 8, a group including Richie Benaud, Adam Gilchrist, and Mitchell Johnson. The only other woman is Karen Price, in a match at Ahmedabad in 1984, who followed up 29 overs opening the bowling with an unbeaten 104 in an innings that went on for so long that India used 11 bowlers.
Sutherland is not a true No 8, that’s just a quirk due to Australia’s absurd depth in both batting and bowling. In her debut one-day series she was suddenly promoted to No 3 for one innings to replace the injured Meg Lanning, and stroked a calm 35 to help set the foundation for a huge score. She has developed a reputation as a finisher for the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash. Tests, after all that, may be where her ability suits best.
Coming to the wicket when Perry was dismissed seemed apt, a passing of the baton from a champion in the later stages of a long career. She was first person named when Sutherland was interviewed unbeaten at the end of Australia’s innings. “Ellyse Perry for one has been awesome for me, in the way that she goes about her cricket and the way she prepares as well,” she said. “I’ve taken a lot from the way she goes about things.”
Sutherland was five years old when Perry first played for Australia, and the former looks like a player who has spent a lifetime watching the latter. In the last couple of years the two always seem to be in each other’s company. Another seam-bowling all-rounder, the resemblance is there in the action and approach, the way she holds her arms wide while approaching the crease. Bowling the outswinger when full, hitting the pitch when back of a length.
When batting it’s even more evident. Sutherland is a mini‑Perry, with the stillness, the upright stance, correctness of stroke play, concentration. When she drives, straight or square, her timing gives the pure sound of contact. When she takes on the pull or lofts spin, she can crush it. With patience and technical application, women’s Test cricket has big scores on offer, and taking the time to collect them is the Perry method. “The way she goes about things,” as it were.
In life as with her batting, her timing has been spot on. Sutherland arrived in domestic cricket in the second Big Bash season, pointy elbowed and quiet, 15 years old. In the span of her career, women’s cricket in Australia has gone from a largely amateur pastime to a highly paid career.
The No 8 whose score she exceeded, Karen Price, played without pay and spent her life afterwards as a volunteer administrator. Recognised in 2020 as a Cricket New South Wales life member, Price said she had “to thank all those people who were running cricket when I first started playing, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, who had no money – there was no money, there was nothing – but they did what they needed to do to be able to offer the game to people”.
Sutherland lives in a different era, one rich with benefits at the top end of the game. She had every advantage in getting there, and is well placed to enjoy it for another decade or more.
As her century this week underlines, she is making the most of it, proof of what real investment can do.
