Ashes stars Harry Brook and Zak Crawley are among the many English players who have been nominated for the upcoming BBL draft, but clubs will need to choose between signing the most famous players and those who have the most availability due to England’s Test tour of India in January and the clarity surrounding the ILT20 dates.
For the draft, which is scheduled for September 3, Brook, Crawley, Ollie Pope, Will Jacks, and Dan Lawrence have all made nominations. Given that they will all be scheduled to tour India with England’s Test team in January 2024, with the first Test in a five-Test series beginning on January 25 in Hyderabad, it is unclear how much of the BBL season they will be able to play in.
Gus Atkinson, a promising England tearaway, has also declared for the BBL draft. Although he has not yet received a Test call-up, he is set to play his first limited-overs match for England next month and is a member of their World Cup team.
The final home and away game of the compressed 10-game season concludes on January 17, and the BBL final will take place on January 24. The ILT20 tournament, which will start on January 19 in the UAE, was announced as the other significant development for BBL clubs.
Clubs may prefer drafting players who have also committed to the ILT20 over those who will head to South Africa because they are expected to be available for nearly the entire home and away season when the South African T20 league begins on January 10.
Dawid Malan, Tom Banton, and Jimmy Neesham from England and New Zealand, respectively, were among the most recent players to be nominated for the BBL draft despite having previously made a commitment to South Africa. Sam Billings, Joe Clarke, James Vince, Tom Curran, David Willey, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Martin Guptill, and Atkinson, who have all committed to the ILT20, are more likely to pique clubs’ interest.
Several players, including Crawley (Hurricanes), Billings (Heat), Clarke (Stars), Vince (Sixers), Curran (Sixers), Banton (Heat), and Willey (Thunder), who withdrew after being selected last year, will be available as retention picks. The team may decide to keep players who were selected in the previous season’s draft but did not participate. Willey participated in 27 games for the Perth Scorchers between 2015 and 2019, but he is ineligible to be a Scorchers retention pick because he was selected by the Thunder in the previous year’s draft.
Although Brook, Lawrence, Jacks, and Malan have all participated in the BBL before, they do not meet the requirements to be kept because they did not play for a team for a minimum of two seasons prior to not participating last season.
South African star Marizanne Kapp has announced that she will play in the WBBL once more, giving the Scorchers a critical choice to make over their lone WBBL retention pick. Kapp and Sophie Devine are two of the top all-arounders in the world that the Scorchers must pick from.
Although Devine is the Scorchers captain and a two-time WBBL player of the year, Kapp has been terrific for the Scorchers in her past two seasons. Making the choice even more challenging is Devine’s involvement with Western Australia’s WNCL team, which is closely related to the Scorchers program.
While Dane van Niekerk, who formerly played for the Adelaide Strikers, Sydney Sixers, and Melbourne Renegades, is ineligible as a retention pick due to missing last year’s competition, Laura Wolvaardt appears likely to be.
Nominees for the WBBL
England: Mady Villiers, Lauren Winfield-Hill, Issy Wong, Danielle Wyatt, Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Alice Capsey, Kate Cross, Freya Davies, Sophie Ecclestone, Sarah Glenn, Heather Knight, Emma Lamb
India: Radha Yadav, Yastika Bhatia, Harleen Deol, Hurley Gala, Richa Ghosh, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Shikha Pandey, Shreyanka Patil, Sneh Rana, Jemimah Rodrigues, and Renuka Thakur
Sophie Devine, Kate Ebrahim, Hayley Jensen, Fran Jonas, and Jess Kerr are from New Zealand.
Fatima Sana, Pakistan
Dane van Niekerk, Chloe Tryon, Nadine de Klerk, Anneke Bosch, Tazmin Brits, Suné Luus, Shabnim Ismail, Marizanne Kapp, Laura Wolvaardt,
Chamari Athapaththu, Sri Lanka
West Indies: Karishma Ramharack and Hayley Matthews
Nominees for the BBL
Shafiqullah Ghafari, Izharulhaq Naveed, and Mujeeb Ur Rahman are Afghans.
The following players represent England: Rehan Ahmed, Gus Atkinson, Tom Banton, Sam Billings, Harry Brook, Joe Clarke, Zak Crawley, Tom Curran, Laurie Evans, Richard Gleeson, Alex Hales, Will Jacks, Chris Jordan, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Dan Lawrence, Dawid Malan, Tymal Mills, Callum Parkinson, Matt Parkinson, Ollie Pope, David Payne, Matt Potts, Olly Stone, Josh Tongue, Rehan Ahmed
Josh Little, Ireland
Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, and Jimmy Neesham are from New Zealand.
Rilee Rossouw, Tabraiz Shamsi, Imran Tahir, Marchant de Lange, Faf du Plessis, Beuran Hendricks, Wayne Parnell,
Lakshan Sandakan, Sri Lanka
Joshua Bishop, Sheldon Cottrell, Akeal Hosein, Nicholas Pooran, Jayden Seales, and Ramon Simmonds are all from the West Indies.
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