WBBL overseas draft: Lone Indian Harmanpreet Kaur retained by Melbourne Renegades

Melbourne: Women’s team captain Harmanpreet Kaur was the only Indian player to get picked in the Women’s Big Bash League overseas draft, being retained by Melbourne Renegades here on Sunday. A total of 18 Indian players, including Yastika Bhatia, Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma, among other figured in the inaugural WBBL overseas draft but just one — Harmanpreet — got picked. Placed in the platinum category, Harmanpreet was retained by the Renegades along with Hayley Matthews of the West Indies. Harmanpreet performed remarkably for the Renegades during the 2021-22 season, scoring 406 runs in 12 innings at an average of 58.00 and a strike rate of 130.96, including three half-centuries and a top score of 81 not out. She was also effective with the ball, taking 15 wickets at an economy of 7.45, with best figures of 3 for 22. Harmanpreet had made her WBBL debut with Sydney Thunder in 2016-17. Speaking on Harmanpreet’s retention, Renegades head coach Simon Helmot stated, “I’m so pleased we got both of them (Harmanpreet and Hayley) and I’m looking forward to them working with us again this year. “It was a tough decision — do we go Harmanpreet at pick three, or do we go Hayley? Fortunately, it worked out for us that Harmanpreet was still available in the second round, so we could still get her as a Platinum pick.” Harmanpreet’s long list of domestic franchise T20 teams include Lancashire Thunder, Supernovas, Manchester Originals and Trent Rockets (The Hundred) and Mumbai Indians (Women’s Premier League). The WBBL overseas draft also included Indian players such as Harleen Deol, Hurley Gala, Richa Ghosh, Mannat Kashyap, Amanjot Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Shikha Pandey, Shreyanka Patil, Sneh Rana, Meghana Sabbineni, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Pooja Vastrakar and Radha Yadav.