Ellyse Perry and her invisible cloak of greatness Premium

The Australian all-rounder is widely regarded as one of the best cricketers ever — incredibly, she has also scored a screamer at the football World Cup — but she wears her accolades lightly

True greatness, wrote Samuel Butler in his celebrated novel The Way of All Flesh, wears an invisible cloak.

That is the impression Ellyse Perry gives, too. She is so self-effacing, you won’t feel you are talking to the woman who has been described as the greatest female cricketer of all time by another great herself, Charlotte Edwards.

Take, for instance, the manner in which Perry speaks about the stunning boundary-line save she made against India in a crunch situation during Australia’s T20 World Cup semifinal at Cape Town last month. India needed 18 runs off nine balls when Sneh Rana swept Jess Jonassen and four runs looked inevitable. But, from almost out of nowhere, Perry appeared in the frame, made a full-length dive, and flicked the ball back in, reminding you of a certain Jonty Rhodes.

It will remain one of the best pieces of fielding — by a cricketer male or female — you are likely to see for quite some time. Australia went on to win the match by five runs, and three days later, Perry lifted her eighth World Cup.

“I don’t think it was that special,” says Perry, during an interview with The Hindu at Mumbai’s Taj Lands End, when asked about her special boundary-rope act. She would rather talk about how incredible that semifinal against India was.

Incredible is also a word you would think of to describe Perry’s career in sport. In sport, not just cricket.

She has played in a FIFA Women’s Football World Cup, in 2011 in Germany. The goal she scored for Australia against Sweden — she got the ball to swerve into the top corner of the net from the edge of the box — is a reminder of what she could have achieved on a football field. She was 20 then.