JASON ROY and David Warner were ignored in The Hundred draft as Andrew Flintoff kick-started a West Indies rush by snapping up Nicholas Pooran along with his first pick.
Roy (below) was released by Oval Invincibles after a modest past couple of seasons. A £100,000 base price plus his expected participation in Major League Cricket, which has a minor schedule clash with The Hundred this 12 months, seems to have delay potential bidders.
England’s 2019 World Cup-winning opening batter was not the one big name snub as Australia left-hander Warner, Recent Zealand’s Kane Williamson and Pakistan’s Babar Azam were also unsold.
As an alternative, with no Caribbean Premier League clash this 12 months, there was a definite West Indian flavour in the lads’s draft as five of the seven buys within the top-tier £125,000 bracket went on big-hitting Windies stars.
Former England captain Flintoff, appointed Northern Superchargers men’s head coach in November in his first official role since returning to cricket, plumped for Pooran after his side finished bottom of the pile last 12 months, giving the Superchargers the primary likelihood to replenish their squads. Flintoff also picked Daniel Sams for £100,000, Tom Lawes for £50,000 and Graham Clark for £40,000.
London Spirit offered £125,000 deals to Andre Russell and Shimron Hetmyer while Rovman Powell and Kieron Pollard are set to receive the identical from Trent Rockets and Southern Brave respectively.
Welsh Fire paid £125,000 for Tom Kohler-Cadmore as did Birmingham Phoenix for Pakistan quick Naseem Shah, while England duo Dawid Malan and Ollie Pope were bought for £50,000 by Oval Invincibles and London Spirit respectively.
Mark Wood was also conspicuously ignored at a reserve price of £100,000 for a tournament scheduled to begin on July 23 and run to August 18, although England stringently manage his workload and it seems likely the express quick can be involved in a Test against the West Indies starting on July 26.
Those that were disregarded within the draft could still feature this 12 months, swapping in for anyone who drops out at their base price limit or higher. For instance, Shaheen Shah Afridi went to Welsh Fire for £100,000 but when he were unavailable, the Cardiff-based team could select Roy or Wood as a substitute.
A complete of 75 spots were filled, including 26 for the overseas contingent, across each drafts. In the ladies’s draft, Birmingham Phoenix retained England wicketkeeper-batter Amy Jones as their first pick.
With vaunted Australia stars Meg Lanning, Ashleigh Gardner and Beth Mooney all within the reckoning, it was a curious selection from the Phoenix, who added one other two wicketkeepers to their ranks in Richa Ghosh and Seren Smale.
Mooney, the world’s primary T20 batter, was chosen by Manchester Originals while former Australia captain Lanning, who announced her international retirement late last 12 months, was also in the highest women’s pay bracket of £50,000 and is ready to affix England skipper Heather Knight at London Spirit.
Gardner and Annabel Sutherland also got top whack with Trent Rockets and Northern Superchargers respectively, as did Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu at Oval Invincibles and India’s Smriti Mandhana at Southern Brave.
Jemimah Rodrigues, Deandra Dottin and Suzie Bates were amongst the very best profile players to not get deals for this summer.
GAFFER GONE
ALEC STEWART, Director of Cricket at Surrey, is to step down at the top of 2024 after 11 years within the role.
Stewart has steered Surrey to 3 Championship titles and built a powerful culture of success. He said: “I actually have given this job my total commitment nevertheless it is just not one that you may just leave at the bottom, because it demands 24/7 attention. As people may know, my wife has been battling cancer since 2013 and I would like to present her, and my family, more of my time over the approaching years than this job allows.”
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