Player Profile
Tara Norris has quite the career CV to her name. The left-arm fast bowler arrived at 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, aged 25, 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 regional outfit win the Charlotte Edwards Cup in 2022.
New ball exponent Norris has also tasted county success in the past with Sussex.
Now she will be aiming to bring that type of success to Thunder, going close at the first time of asking with a Finals Day appearance in the CE Cup in June 2023. Ironically, they were beaten in the New Road semi-final by Vipers, who went on to claim the trophy once more.
Her first summer in Thunder red 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.
With the bat, she hit a stunning 51 not out off 27 balls in the same competition 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 had played a handful of T20 internationals for the country of her birth, the United States of America.
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!
Norris debuted in county cricket for Sussex in 2014 aged 15 and has since taken a total of 151 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.
That was the game in which a good portion of the crowd turned up in fancy dress after the cancellation of the England v India men’s Test Match up the road at Emirates Old Trafford.
But arguably her standout regional 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 in Thunder colours would be, let’s say, the American dream.