3 Indian women who have played in the WBBL

Big Bash league is the second most watched T20 league in the world. It was established by Cricket Australia in the year 2011.BBL consists of eight city-based teams from six different states BBL matches are played in Australia during the summer in the months of December and January.

As a part of the BBL, a separate T20 league, Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) was established in the 2015-16 season with the same eight franchises as that of men’s. The teams from Sydney have won all the 3 WBBL championships with Sydney Thunder winning the inaugural season and Sydney Sixers winning the last two seasons. The 4th season of WBBL is going to start from December 1st and going to end on January 26th, 2019. Though BCCI has been reluctant to send its male cricketers to play in foreign T20 league, it allows female players to play in various T20 leagues around the globe.

Here we look at the 3 Indian women who have played in the WBBL in the previous seasons:

#3 Veda Krishnamurthy (Hobart Hurricanes)

Veda Krishnamurthy is a hard-hitting middle-order batsman and has been a part of the Indian squad since 2011. She is a right-handed batsman who can bowl occasionally. The Karnataka girl was bought by Hobart Hurricanes as their foreign signing for the 3rd edition of WBBL. She was given the nickname of Darth by her teammates. She was on a good from coming to the WBBL season but couldn’t find any Midas touch as she scored just 144 runs for her team in the 9 matches she played.

Though Veda was a good fielder out in the boundaries and took some great catches her batting didn’t help as much as her fielding did for her side. Her top score was 40 which she scored in the last match of the series which couldn’t help her as she was not given the contract extension for this year and she was replaced by fellow country girl Smriti Mandhana.

#2 Smriti Mandhana (Brisbane Heat)

Smriti Mandhana played for Brisbane Heat in the second edition of the WBBL. She became the second Indian player to play for a WBBL club. Mandhana made her international debut at a young age of 16 and has played 44 ODIs and 52 T20Is for the Indian team. She is now the vice-captain of Indian T20 side.

She had a poor WBBL as she scored just 89 runs in 12 matches for the Brisbane Heat with the highest score of 40 coming against Hobart Hurricanes. She picked up 3 wickets with the best bowling of 2 for 6. She showed her talent in the field by taking 4 catches to her name. In 2018 she played for Western Strom in the Kia Super League. She was the top scorer of the league with 421 runs to her name. She scored two fifties and a hundred in the nine innings she played. As a result of her performance in Kia Super League, she was awarded a contract to play for Hobart Hurricanes in the WBBL replacing her compatriot Veda Krishnamurthy for the 4th edition of WBBL.

#3 Harmanpreet Kaur (Sydney Thunder)

The Indian women’s T20 team captain Harmanpreet Kaur was the first Indian player to be signed for a WBBL side. She was signed by the Sydney Thunder for the second edition of WBBL. The Punjabi all-rounder has played 19 matches for thunder in last two seasons.

Harman was at her best during the second season of the WBBL scoring 296 runs at an average of 59.20 and has the highest score of 64. She also picked up 4 wickets in WBBL’02 with the best figures of 4-27. She was named as the Thunder’s player of the tournament in the WBBL’02. In WBBL’03 she had a quiet tournament as she played just 7 matches and scored 107 runs at an average of 21.40. She also picked up 3 wickets. She was retained by the Sydney Thunder due to her strong performance in the T20 World Cup which concluded recently in the Caribbean Islands.