Nicola Payne (cricketer)

Nicola Payne (married name Wilson; born 10 September 1969) is a former international cricketer who played women's One Day Internationals (ODIs) for both the Dutch and the New Zealand national sides, including at four World Cups.

Born in Toronto, Canada, Payne was raised in the Netherlands, and made her ODI debut for the national side at the age of 19, at the 1988 World Cup. A top-order batsman, at that tournament she played in seven of the team's eight matches, but scored only 42 runs from seven innings as the Netherlands went winless. Only one of her teammates, Anita Beecheno-van Lier, passed 100 runs for the tournament, and no Dutchwoman scored a half-century. Payne's next major tournament was the 1989 European Championship, hosted by Denmark, in which she scored 47 runs from her three matches (second only to Jet van Noortwijk for the Dutch). The 55-over tournament was at that time held annually, featuring three other teams besides the Netherlands – Denmark, England, and Ireland, with England by far the strongest team. Payne played in the following two tournaments, scoring 50 runs in the 1990 edition, held in England, and 67 runs in the 1991 edition, held in the Netherlands. Against Denmark in 1991, she took her first international wicket, bowling Danish tailender Lene Slebsager with her right-arm medium pace.

Payne spent the 1991–92 off-season (the European winter) playing for Queensland in the Australian Women's Championships. At the 1993 World Cup in England, she scored more than any other Dutch player, finishing with 121 runs from seven innings. Playing against Ireland, she scored 46 runs, her highest score of the tournament. She also took four wickets for the tournament, including 3/20 from twelve overs against Denmark – her best figures at ODI level. The Dutch side played only two ODI series between the 1993 and 1997 World Cups – the 1995 European Championships and a two-game series against Denmark in 1997, played at the Mikkelberg-Kunst-und-Cricket Center in Hattstedt, Germany. In the second game of the latter series, Payne scored 73 not out, her highest ODI score for the Netherlands. Having earlier taken 3/25 in the Danish innings, she featured in an unbroken 147-run opening partnership with Edmee Janss, which remains a record for the Netherlands as of January 2015. That innings was one of only two half-centuries Payne scored from 37 ODIs for the Netherlands. The second came against in the 1997 World Cup, an innings of 55 runs in the team's defeat of Sri Lanka.