Stars claim BBL Draft's first pick for second year running

Melbourne Stars have scored the KFC BBL Draft's first pick for the second year in a row with the league today revealing the order for the event's third edition.

It's the third consecutive year the first pick has fallen to a Melbourne-based club after the Renegades had the opening selection in the inaugural overseas draft for BBL|12.

The Renegades secured pick two for this year's event with both Melbourne clubs drawn first and second respectively in a weighted lottery to determine the order for the BBL|14 Draft, which is expected to be held in September.

Sydney Thunder may feel a touch unlucky after being drawn third despite having a 40 per cent chance of scoring the first pick owing to their bottom of the table finish last season.

Seventh-placed Renegades had a 30 per cent chance of scoring pick one, while the Stars, who finished sixth in BBL|13, had a 20 per cent chance.

But their ill-fortune will be eased somewhat after announcing this morning they had secured English T20 specialist Sam Billings for the entirety of the next three Big Bash seasons, including finals, under the league's new direct signing option for overseas players.

Billings was the first men's player signed under the new contracting mechanism for overseas player and follows Sydney Sixers securing star New Zealand allrounder Amelia Kerr for the next three Weber WBBL seasons.

Announced in April, the rule allows clubs to directly sign one overseas player at a time for up to three years, allowing players to skip the uncertainty of the draft and negotiate directly with a club of their choice.

Direct signings must be paid at one of the existing draft salary bands (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze) or at a negotiated price above the Platinum rate, which was $420,000 last BBL season.

Draft salary bands

Direct signings won't be part of the draft pool, but each club must nominate a draft salary band for their direct signing and won't be able to pick in that round of the draft later this year. The Thunder are yet to divulge what band Billings' signing falls into.

Cricket Australia's general manager of Big Bash Leagues, Alistair Dobson, said he was delighted Kerr and Billings had "committed long-term to the Big Bash".

Last season's champions Brisbane Heat were big winners from the weighted lottery as they secured the sixth pick despite only having a 16 per cent chance of doing so.

Picks 1-4 were drawn from teams that did not participate in the BBL|13 finals, while the four finalists from last season were in the running for picks 5-8.

Hobart Hurricanes will have the fourth pick, Adelaide Strikers the fifth, followed by the Heat, Perth Scorchers and BBL|13 runners-up Sydney Sixers.

The draft will follow a 'snake' format from the start of the second round, with round three conducted in reverse order, meaning the Sixers will select first (pick 17).

The Strikers will have the Thunder's pick 11 in round two after trading second round pick last month, with Adelaide also sending fast bowler Wes Agar to the Western Sydney club to move up in the draft order.

The Stars will be hoping it's third time lucky for the first pick participating in the tournament. Both Rashid Khan (who was retained by the Strikers after the Stars tried to take him with pick one last year) and their subsequent selection Harry Brook withdrew from BBL|13 due to injury and international commitments respectively, while Liam Livingstone, who was taken with pick one by the Renegades a year earlier, also later withdrew from the tournament for workload management.

Each club will have access to a retention pick during the draft, provided they are not one of the eight players pre-signed prior to the event.

The Heat have lost the ability to retain Billings after his return to the Thunder, but Colin Munro and Paul Walter remain eligible if they nominate for the draft.

The Stars could retain Brook despite not featuring last season, while star quicks Trent Boult and Haris Rauf are also eligible.

Other players eligible to be retained include Afghan spinners Rashid (Strikers), Mujeeb Ur Rahman (Renegades), English BBL stalwarts Alex Hales (Thunder), James Vince and Tom Curran (both Sixers), as well as Test opener Zak Crawley and Laurie Evans (both Scorchers) and Jamie Overton (Strikers). South African star Quinton de Kock is also able to be retained by the Renegades should he chose to return to the BBL for a second season.

The new overseas direct signing rule was brought in to help mitigate the loss of international players to rival T20 leagues, particularly in the second half of the BBL season, which saw all four finalists (Heat, Sixers, Scorchers and Strikers) all lose players to the UAE's ILT20 competition prior to the BBL|13 finals.

That is again expected to be the case in BBL|14 for overseas players entering the draft, with the ILT20 set to begin on January 11 next year and the South African T20 league on January 9.