Smriti Mandhana, Richa Ghosh only Indians to attract bids in The Hundred draft

After captaining the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to the title in the recently-concluded second season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), opening batter Smriti Mandhana is set to return to the Southern Brave dressing room in The Hundred this year.

Mandhana’s RCB teammate, wicketkeeper-batter Richa Ghosh was the only other Indian to find a bidder in The Hundred draft in London, with the Birmingham Phoenix acquiring her services.

The left-handed Mandhana had a good run in the WPL, scoring 300 runs from 10 matches with two fifties, while Richa, who often did the role of a finisher, made 257 runs from 10 matches with two half-centuries and a strike-rate of 142.

Mandhana has already been a part of the Brave dressing room, and notably, she worked alongside Luke Williams here before he joined RCB as the coach during the WPL 2024.

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The Phoenix is Richa’s second team in The Hundred as she had earlier donned the jersey of the London Spirit.

However, some other players like Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues and Shreyanka Patil, who were among the 17 Indian players registered for the draft, could not find bidders during the draft.

Shreyanka, who played for RCB, was the highest wicket-taker during this season’s WPL with 13 wickets from eight matches.

But they still have a chance to enter the Hundred as the teams can rope in one more overseas player each through the Vitality Wild Cards.

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With PTI inputs