Player Profile
Tara Norris has quite the career CV to her name. The left-arm fast bowler arrived at Lancashire Thunder ahead of the 2023 summer from Southern Vipers, with whom she won three regional trophies.
Norris moved to the North West for greater opportunity. When the Vipers had all of their England players available, the US international was not a first choice selection.
In terms of regional cricket, Norris, now aged 26, has been there, done it and bought the t-shirt whilst representing the Vipers. A two-time winner of the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, she also helped the Hampshire-based outfit win the Charlotte Edwards Cup in 2022.
New ball exponent Norris has also tasted county success in the past with Sussex and was an important member of the London Spirit’s Hundred triumph in 2024, claiming five wickets in 10 appearances.
She will be confident of adding more trophies in the coming seasons, this time in Lancashire colours in the new professional county-led era of domestic cricket in England.
Her first summer with the Red Rose was an encouraging one. She claimed 20 wickets in 20 appearances, including friendlies, with a best of 4-42 in a RHFT defeat against Central Sparks at New Road. She helped the side reach Finals Day in the CE Cup.
With the bat, she hit a stunning 51 not out off 27 balls in 50-over cricket against Vipers at Southport, rescuing a tie with some exhilarating hitting when all seemed lost. Both of her season’s bests came within five days of each other in early July.
Norris also has international experience under her belt. At time of writing, she has taken 12 wickets from 15 international appearances for her birth country, USA.
On top of all of this, on the eve of the 2023 summer, she was picked up in the inaugural WPL auction in India by the Delhi Capitals franchise.
In the opening round of the competition, against Royal Challengers Bangalore, she claimed a stunning 5-29 in a big win, a haul started with the wicket of Australian legend Ellyse Perry. She became the first bowler in that competition to take a five-wicket haul.
Philadelphia-born Norris played development and Academy cricket for England having grown up in Barcelona and is also half Italian, as her middle name of Gabriella indicates.
“I don’t remember much of (living in) America if I’m being honest,” she told the Stars and Stripes cricket podcast in 2022, approximately a month after making her debut for the US.
“My childhood was being brought up in Spain - Barcelona - pretty much living by the sea.
“About 2006, we moved to the UK because of my dad’s job in the pharmaceutical industry.
“Cricket wasn’t on the school agenda in Spain. There was a lot of swimming. I’m a big tennis fan, so I played a lot of that at school. There was also a lot of football.
“When we moved to the UK, cricket was a way to make friends. I joined an after-school club but hadn’t really heard of it. But I enjoyed it, was pushed into a club down the road, who then pushed me into county age-group trials.”
The rest, as they say, is history!
In 2024, Norris claimed 15 wickets and hit 162 runs in all cricket for Thunder.
Ahead of 2025, she organised a coaching trip to South America for herself and Lancashire team-mates Ellie Threlkeld, Fi Morris and Phoebe Graham. They coached the women’s teams of Argentina and Brazil for a month. She also played in the Big Bash for Melbourne Renegades.
Norris debuted in county cricket for Sussex in 2014 aged 15 and has since taken a total of 177 wickets in T20 and List A cricket.
Her best T20 haul was that aforementioned 5-29 in the WPL in early 2023, while she claimed 4-14 in an RHFT win for Vipers against Thunder at Sale in late summer 2022.
But arguably her most important senior career performance to date came in the RHFT final of 2021 against Northern Diamonds at Northampton when she claimed two wickets and then hit 40 not out from number nine as the Vipers recovered from 109-7 to chase 184.
Similar success for Lancashire would be, let’s say, the American dream.