Old Delphinian and the world's top female cricketer, Claire Taylor, delighted a group of girls from Years 6, 7 & 8 when she came along to run a cricketing skills workshop for them.

We were so grateful to Claire for finding the time to spend with us just a few hours after having played such a crucial part in England's victory in the Twenty-20 World Cup final against New Zealand just the previous day. In fact Claire won the Player of the Tournament award and we were delighted she brought the trophy with her to show us.

The girls, including a group from St Nicholas Primary School in Hurst, thoroughly enjoyed the session and were without doubt inspired by her success, energy and enthusiasm.

As if Claire's visit were not exciting enough, we also had a visit from BBC Newsround and local papers who covered the event.

Claire, the first woman in the 120 year history of WISDEN to be selected as one of its five Cricketers of the Year, began her cricket career at Dolphin where she went on to captain the school team.

Claire later studied Maths at Queen’s College, Oxford, where she captained the university hockey team, winning three hockey blues, and 3 ½ blues for cricket. She played men’s cricket for her college 1^st X1 and trained with the men’s university 2^nd X1.

Claire played her first match for the England Women’s Cricket Team in 1998.

Additional Background:

Claire is remembered at Dolphin not just for her sporting prowess, but also as an excellent chess and violin player. (In fact she still plays with the Reading Symphony and Aldworth Philharmonic orchestras.)

Claire Taylor has become the first woman inthe 120 year history of WISDEN to be selected as one of its five Cricketers of the Year. This unprecedented honour is based on her performance in 2008 when she finished the year as Number One Woman Batsman in the World and batted England to victory in the Ashes played in Australia. The Wisden editor said, 'beating Australia in Australia is the objective for all cricketers, at least in England, and Claire almost single-handedly saw England through to victory...Taylor has been chosen on merit, for being preeminent in her form of the game.' The other English cricketer selected was bowler Jimmie Anderson.

This year Claire went on to be named player of the tournament for her part in securing England's victory over New Zealand in the World Cup final on Sunday 22nd March. She scored one century and two half centuries and made 324 runs at an average of 64.80. She has now repeated this success in the Twenty - 20 World Cup final on Sunday June 21st.

Claire has three times been nominated for International Player of the Year and was the first woman to hit a century in a one day match at Lords. On this occasion in 2006 she hit 156 which was the highest one day total ever, eclipsing the previous high of 138 scored here by Viv Richards in the 1979 World Cup.