New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS): Australia women’s opener Beth Mooney said she had been keeping an eye on India batter Dayalan Hemalatha for the last few years, and added that she was chuffed to have roped her in for the upcoming season of the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL).
In the WBBL overseas draft, Hemalatha, who bowls occasional off-spin, was picked by the Perth Scorchers, and will join Beth at the club in her first overseas T20 league stint. The duo were together in the Gujarat Giants camp at WPL 2024 in Bengaluru and New Delhi.
"She's certainly been one that I've kept my eye on the last couple of years in the WPL and she's made her way into the Indian squad for the World Cup. She's a pretty explosive player and can clear the boundary better than most people so I'm just pumped to have her, I thoroughly enjoyed batting with her this year at Gujarat.
"You want your players available for as long as possible, especially heading into the back end of tournaments so I'm pretty pumped with those decisions we made," said Beth to cricket.com.au.
Apart from Hemalatha, Smriti Mandhana (Adelaide Strikers), Deepti Sharma and Yastika Bhatia (Melbourne Stars), Jemimah Rodrigues and Shikha Pandey (Brisbane Heat) found teams, though skipper Harmanpreet Kaur found no takers in the draft.
Hobart Hurricanes coach Jude Coleman said the side was pumped to get services of England opener Danni Wyatt after their first three attempts in the draft were thwarted by teams using their retention pick choices.
"We planned to make people retain, and they did that, and we thought we might get Danni, and we're pumped that that's gone that way. The big one for us was Sophie Ecclestone – she’s a great get, we did think the Sixers would retain her. We hoped that they wouldn't have enough money, but they've somehow got pretty big pockets. But that meant that we could get Chloe Tryon in that second round (because) the Sixers couldn't retain her."
"We're a pretty solid local line-up with the bat, but we have probably lacked middle-order hitters so Chloe's a big part of that, and Danni's just a world-class opener. Shabs (Shabnim Ismail) was great for us last year (but) it probably came down to an injury that we've had in the lead up … so we're covering that as well, but a big part of Chloe's selection is her power with the bat."