The ninth season of Australia's Women's Big Bash League will feature its first ever player draft; with the 8 teams vying to secure the services of 122 overseas players, including several big names from India.
The Weber WBBL player draft has attracted 116 players from 19 nations, while six others have taken the unique 'direct nomination' path.
Amelia Kerr, Deepti Sharma and Deandra Dottin are among the superstars in the mix as the complete list of 122 nominees for Sunday's inaugural Weber WBBL player draft has been confirmed.
The Indian players in the draft are as follows: Yastika Bhatia, Harmanpreet Kaur, Harleen Deol, Hurley Gala, Richa Ghosh, Mannat Kashyap, Amanjot Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Shikha Pandey, Shreyanka Patil, Sneh Rana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Meghana Sabbineni, Deepti Sharma, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Pooja Vastrakar, and Radha Yadav.
A further six players including New Zealand's Suzie Bates have made themselves available for WBBL|09 but have opted to use a mechanism, unique to the women's competition, which allows them to bypass the draft and to sign directly with a WBBL club afterwards.
The so-called "Direct Nominations" removes the uncertainty of a draft for the player, but it comes at a cost – a player opting for this approach can only be paid a maximum of 95 per cent of the silver tier, meaning their salary will be restricted to A$61,750 for WBBL|09.
Players taken in the first round of the draft at the platinum level will pocket A$110,000, while gold tier players will earn A$90,000.
Meanwhile, star India allrounder Sharma is not eligible for retention and could be drafted to any of the eight clubs.
The introduction of the draft has opened the doors to players from around the globe to put themselves forward for consideration, with the likes of Ireland's Orla Prendergast, USA's Tara Norris and Bangladesh's Jahanara Alam keen to join the competition for the first time.
Each club is only entitled to use one retention pick.
The overseas player draft will be held on September 3 and will be televised on Fox Cricket and Kayo Sports in conjunction with the second KFC BBL draft, starting from 5.30pm AEST.
Foreign players have nominated for the draft across three tiers – gold, silver ($65,000) and bronze ($40,000).
Ahead of the draft, league officials will elevate select players who they determine are the most enticing draft prospects to a platinum tier, with that list to be revealed on Wednesday.
For the record, while a total of 116 players from 19 countries have thrown their hats in the ring for the WBBL|09 Draft, the (men's) BBL|13 Draft features 376 players from 29 countries.
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