Player Profile
In signing Middlesex captain Naomi Dattani from Sunrisers ahead of 2023, Thunder acquired a dynamic all-rounder capable of winning matches with bat, ball and in the field.
She won the last ever Kia Super League title in 2019 whilst playing for Western Storm and has also represented the London Spirit in the first two years of the Hundred and Trent Rockets for the third.
In senior cricket, she has played 222 matches in List A and T20 cricket, scoring 2,691 runs and taking 119 wickets.
She reached the 200 career appearance mark in Thunder colours in early 2023, and in early 2024 she will hope to reach 100 appearances in List A cricket alone.
In all cricket for Thunder in her first season with the region, she hit 450 runs and took 16 wickets in 24 matches, including friendlies.
She hit a superb best of 82 in the season-ending Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy win over Western Storm at Emirates Old Trafford. Her equally impressive best of 4-16 from 6.5 overs with the ball came in a mid-July success over rivals Northern Diamonds at York in the same competition.
The all-rounder - a left-handed top order batter and a left-arm seamer - warmed up for 2024 with a spell of winter club cricket in Perth.
Dattani was born in the West London borough of Ealing and has Indian heritage.
Dattani has three career centuries to her name, started with 109 not for Middlesex Under 13s in a 30-over win against Hertfordshire in July 2007.
She also scored 143 in a league match for Finchley Gunns women before crashing 102 not out off 58 balls for Sunrisers in a T20 friendly against the MCC women at Lord’s last April. Phoebe Graham was playing for the MCC that day.
She has also taken two four-wicket hauls for Middlesex in county cricket and claimed another for Sunrisers in a T20 friendly against Lightning last April. Another, as aforementioned, followed for Thunder.
Dattani is a graduate of Loughborough University and appeared on the Christmas Special of the BBC programme University Challenge. Monty Panesar was on the same team. They got to the semi-final of the Jeremy Paxman hosted show.
She made her senior county debut for Middlesex in May 2008, aged 14, and has also played winter club cricket in Melbourne and for the England Academy and A teams. She is a former Middlesex team-mate of Alex Hartley’s.
She has played five times for England A between 2016 and 2022, including once against the touring New Zealand senior team a couple of summers ago.
In April and May 2022, Dattani played a trio of T20 friendlies for the A side against an England Development Squad XI.
Phoebe Graham, Laura Jackson, Hannah Jones, Emma Lamb and Ellie Threlkeld all played for the Development side at stages through the ‘series’, while Tara Norris played for England A.
Dattani was the Sunrisers’ leading run-scorer in the 2022 Charlotte Edwards Cup, scoring 157 runs in six appearances, including a pair of half-centuries. She also struck six times with the ball.
Reflecting upon winning the KSL title with Storm in 2019, she told Lancashire Spin magazine shortly after signing on with Thunder: “That was a massive highlight of mine.
“Being part of the team which lost the semi-final the year before and then going on to win it in the final year of the KSL was really special. I took a lot of confidence from that into the following year. Being around players like Heather Knight and our overseas players, Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma - and learning from them - was pretty cool.”
Fingers crossed, she has that type of feeling again in the red of Thunder, going one better than the Charlotte Edwards Cup semi-final appearance for her new region in 2023.