MUMBAI: India's vice-captain and star batter Smriti Mandhana, who recent has opted out of this year's edition of Women's Big Bash League, which will be played from October 19 to November 26.
Mandhana's name was missing from the list of 116 'Overseas Player Draft Nominations' for the upcoming season of Women's Big Bash League, announced by Cricket Australia on Monday. "She has decided to skip WBBL as she wants to play domestic cricket instead as India are playing back-to-back international series in India itself (from December)," a source told TOI.
India's women's domestic season will begin with the Senior Women's T20 Trophy, to be played from October 19 to November 9. It will be followed by the Senior Women's Inter-Zonal Trophy, from November 24 to December 4. The Senior Women's One-Day Trophy will run from January 4 to 26. Mandhana has played in three of the eight WBBL seasons so far, and represented Brisbane Heat, Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Thunder.
However, Indian women's team captain Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues will feature in WBBL. Also amongst the 19 Indian women's cricketers listed in the first-ever WBBL draft are Deepti Sharma, Amanjot Kaur, Hurley Gala, Harleen Deol, Yastika Bhatia, Richa Ghosh, Shreyanka Patil, Sneh Rana, Shikha Pandey, Mannat Kashyap, Veda Krishnamurty, Meghana Sabbineni, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Pooja Vastrakar and Radha Yadav.
Meanwhile, Milind Kumar is the lone Indian player in the Big Bash League-13 draft nominations.
