LONDON, Feb 22: Indian stars Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues were among the overseas players retained by their respective franchises for the 2022 edition of the women’s Hundred.
The three other Indian players — Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma and Deepti Sharma — who were part of the last edition have been released by their franchises and will be available for selection by other teams.
Rodrigues plays for the Northern Superchargers while Mandhana represents the Southern Brave in the 100-ball per innings match.
Birmingham Phoenix have released Shafali, London Spirit let go of Deepti Sharma while Manchester Originals did not retain Harmanpreet.
Last time, Mandhana aggregated 167 runs from seven innings at a strike rate of 133.60 before she flew back home to spend time with her family before the Indian team’s tour of Australia. Her best was a 52-ball 78 against Welsh Fire, which was also her last match of the season.
As far as Rodrigues is concerned, she started the last edition with a blistering 92 off 43 balls and followed it with two more half-centuries — 60 off 41 and 57 off 44 — to amass nearly 250 runs from five innings at an average of averaging 60.25 and strike rate of 154.48.
Sophie Devine (Birmingham Phoenix), Lizelle Lee (Manchester Originals), Laura Wolvaardt (Northern Superchargers) and Hayley Matthews (Welsh Fire) complete the list of 12 overseas players to have signed up in the women’s competition so far.
Even though the Australian players didn’t take part in the tournament last year, Birmingham Phoenix and Northern Superchargers have retained Perry Ellyse and Alyssa Healy.
In all, 12 overseas stars have been retained.
The new signings will be announced by the eight teams on March 30. (PTI)
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