Top women stars to play in Quadrangular Series in Chennai next month

Chennai, Jan 30 (UNI) Top women cricket stars from India, Australia, England and New Zealand will be seen in action in the Quadrangular Series to be held here from February 21 to March 5.

Each of the four teams will play the three other line-ups twice in the second edition of the Quadrangular Series.

The inaugural series was held in Lincoln, New Zealand, in 2003.

Australia hed beaten New Zealand in the final to win the title while England had finished third ahead of India.

Australia captain Karen Rolton would be a star attraction and she will be returning to India after she collected the inaugural ICC Women's Player of the Year at the ICC Awards in Mumbai last year.

The 32-year-old Rolton holds the record for most centuries in ODIs (7), the highest individual score in Tests (209 not out), besides being one of the six batswomen to average 50 or more in ODIs.

New Zealand's Rebecca Rolls, a 32-year-old right-handed top order batswoman, will be targeting two personal milestones in the series.

She needs just 17 runs to become the 12th batswoman to complete 2,000 ODI runs, and is only two ODIs from joining the elite group of eight cricketers who have played 100 or more ODIs.

The Series will also see England skipper and top order batswoman Charlotte Edwards re-establish her status as an all time great.

Edwards, the Player of the Year award winner in 2004 and 2005, had a quiet Quadrangular Series four years ago, but was at her brilliant best in the 2005 Women's World Cup where she finished with the highest aggregate of 280 runs at 46.66 average.

Hosts India, the 2005 World Cup runners-up, would want to improve their last edition's fourth position. Apart from some brilliant players, Mithali Raj's team looks in great shape for the Series after clinching its second Asia Cup title in 12 months, against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in Jaipur in December.

Raj and Anjum Chopra are seventh and eighth respectively in the list of all-time ODI run-scorers. Raj has scored 2,731 runs at an average of 47.50 while Chopra has scored 2,409 runs at 35.95.

UNI