JASON ROY and David Warner were overlooked in The Hundred draft as Andrew Flintoff kick-started a West Indies rush by snapping up Nicholas Pooran 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 year, seems to have put off potential bidders.
England’s 2019 World Cup-winning opening batter was not the only big name snub as Australia left-hander Warner, New Zealand’s Kane Williamson and Pakistan’s Babar Azam were also unsold.
Instead, with no Caribbean Premier League clash this year, there was a distinct West Indian flavour in the men’s draft as five of the seven buys in 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 year, giving the Superchargers the first chance to fill up 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 same 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 overlooked at a reserve price of £100,000 for a tournament scheduled to start on July 23 and run to August 18, although England stringently manage his workload and it seems likely the express quick will be involved in a Test against the West Indies starting on July 26.
Those who were disregarded in the draft could still feature this year, swapping in for anyone who drops out at their base price limit or higher. For example, Shaheen Shah Afridi went to Welsh Fire for £100,000 but if he were unavailable, the Cardiff-based team could select Roy or Wood as a replacement.
A total of 75 spots were filled, including 26 for the overseas contingent, across both drafts. In the women’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 in the reckoning, it was a curious selection from the Phoenix, who added another two wicketkeepers to their ranks in Richa Ghosh and Seren Smale.
Mooney, the world’s number one T20 batter, was chosen by Manchester Originals while former Australia captain Lanning, who announced her international retirement late last year, was also in the top women’s pay bracket of £50,000 and is set to join 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 among the highest profile players not to get deals for this summer.
GAFFER GONE
ALEC STEWART, Director of Cricket at Surrey, is to step down at the end of 2024 after 11 years in the role.
Stewart has steered Surrey to three Championship titles and built a strong culture of success. He said: “I have given this job my total commitment but it is not one that you can just leave at the ground, as it demands 24/7 attention. As people may know, my wife has been battling cancer since 2013 and I want to give her, and my family, more of my time over the coming years than this job allows.”
