Five takeaways from Big Bash overseas player draft

Gades force top clubs into tough calls

After the Hobart Hurricanes made a tactical triple-play in the women's draft hours earlier, the Melbourne Renegades followed their lead in the BBL draft hot off the heels of their Victorian stablemates taking ‘Bazball’ dasher Ben Duckett with the first pick.

The Gades, picking second, at first selected James Vince, forcing the Sydney Sixers to spend top dollar on their long-time top-order star to retain him. Sixers coach Greg Shipperd may have hoped to get Vince in the 'gold' salary band, like they did last year, to free up cash elsewhere.

How are retention rights determined?

 

Players are eligible for retention if they fit any of the following criteria:

 

- Was drafted by a Big Bash team in the previous contract year

 

- Have been in a Big Bash team squad for a minimum of two years (at least one of which was in the past three seasons) and hasn't been contracted to another team since

 

- Was in a Big Bash team's squad of 13 for a game in the previous season

 

- Is otherwise approved by the Big Bash Technical Committee due to exceptional circumstances

The fact new Renegades coach, Cameron White, a long-time disciple of Shipperd first with Victoria's Sheffield Shield team and more recently as a Sixers and NSW assistant, knows the coaching maestro better than most added another layer of interest to the move.

But the Gades' second raid did the trick.

Laurie Evans has a tremendous record at the Perth Scorchers and was the star of their BBL|11 final win, but the BBL's most successful club had already committed to Finn Allen for a 'platinum' pick and have a lot of money committed to their enviable list of local players.

"We'd have loved to have kept Laurie Evans but once we'd done the Finn deal, we knew there was a chance (Evans) would get taken by another team," Scorchers coach Adam Voges told cricket.com.au.

"To go at pick two was a bit higher than we'd expected but we always thought there was that chance he'd end up somewhere else."

Speaking to Channel Seven, Voges added: "Unfortunately, we didn't have the salary cap to match a platinum (pick)."

Who your team picked:

On paper, Evans looks a better fit to help the Renegades overturn years of poor performance despite the right-hander set to leave for the ILT20 league midway through the BBL.

The right-hander is a middle-order specialist and should complement dynamic openers Jake Fraser-McGurk and Josh Brown as well as their other overseas picks, Tim Seifert (pre-signing) and spin-bowling allrounder Jacob Bethell.                                                                  

Teams prioritise English talent

The Big Bash might be the new Costa del Sol if its ability to attract 20- and 30-something English men is anything to by.

Almost half of the 30 picks in Sunday's BBL draft were English. Every team finished with at least one English player, and all but two clubs picked two.

It is a reality that the BBL cannot access the absolute top tier of international talent quite like it did in the mid-2010s when the likes of Kevin Pietersen, Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Eoin Morgan and Jacques Kallis were staples of the league.

That's due to a range of factors, though the ability of rival domestic T20 leagues to pay more per match might be the most significant.

Additionally, most major international teams play cricket through December-January, while male Indian players have never been permitted to play overseas T20 leagues.

How do overseas player pre-signings work?

 

A new feature of the BBL is the introduction of a multi-year contract option that allows clubs to pre-sign one men's and women's overseas player for up to a maximum of three years ahead of the drafts.

 

The contracting mechanism has been introduced to help retain and attract new international players amid an increasingly competitive global T20 landscape.

 

From WBBL|11 and BBL|15 (ie: the seasons after this forthcoming one) onwards, these players are required to be available for the entire season including finals.

Given those limitations, Big Bash clubs appear increasingly convinced success in the Hundred and T20 Blast will translate to the BBL even if players do not have considerable international experience; think Evans, Jamie Overton (Strikers) and Paul Walter (Heat).

Jafer Chohan (pick 32 to the Sixers), Jacob Bethell (pick 10 – Renegades), Tom Alsop (14 – Heat), Matthew Hurst and Keaton Jennings (18 and 31 – Scorchers) will be looking to follow in their footsteps this summer.

Biggest names go unsold, availability a major factor

With no Rashid Khan available this year, the biggest names used to promote the draft in his absence were not the ones BBL clubs particularly wanted.

Jofra Archer, Haris Rauf and Alex Hales have been stars of the Big Bash in previous seasons but all three went unsold, as did newcomers like Shamar Joseph, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi and Naseem Shah, all among the best bowlers in the world.

Availability is clearly decisive in a lot of cases. Ngidi, Shamsi (who both hold SAT20 deals) and Hales (ILT20) only nominated for 6-9 games before leaving for rival leagues, while the West Indies-Pakistan Test series in January might knock out Joseph, Rauf and Naseem.

Archer meanwhile set his availability at 6-9 games too but there is uncertainty over whether England would clear him to play at all due to his injury history.

"When big players leave, it leaves a big hole come the back-end of the tournament," new Heat coach Johan Botha told cricket.com.au after choosing three overseas players (Colin Munro with pick 7, Walter at 14 and Alsop at 30) who are available for the whole season.

Yet, other teams have made allowances for top players who cannot play the whole Big Bash. In fact, none of the first five picks (Duckett, Vince, Evans, Lockie Ferguson and Shai Hope) have full availability.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. It gives clubs flexibility to make a call on replacing those departing stars when they have a better idea of exactly what they might need.

For example, the Thunder might want a different type of player to replace Ferguson if, say, Cameron Bancroft earnt a Test call-up during the summer. Similarly, a team might decide Archer is worth a flyer if his availability was locked in leading into or during the BBL season.

Rolling the dice on availability could prove a masterstroke for one club. The Hurricanes took a breakout star from this year's T20 World Cup, leg-spinning allrounder Rishad Hossain, with pick 28 as a cloud hangs over whether Bangladesh can stage their own T20 league amid that country's political crisis.

"We've taken a bit of a gamble there. The Bangladesh Premier League is up in the air at the moment," said Canes cricket boss Ricky Ponting, who was desperate to add a wicket-taking spinner after selecting Hope and Chris Jordan with their first two picks.

"You look at availability on the website and he's available to the end pretty much. If that happens we've got someone who's an out-and-out wicket-taking bowler … if we get full availability out of him, we'll be rapt."

Where are all the fast bowlers?

Non-Indian spinners know too well how difficult it is to win an IPL berth given the depth of local spin talent. A similar trend may be emerging in Australia with overseas pace bowlers now struggling to get a look in.

Of the 30 overseas picks in the draft, only two (Ferguson and Jordan) are specialist pace bowlers. That number expands to five if seam-bowling allrounders like Walter, Tom Curran (pick 9 to the Stars) and Overton (pick 6 - Strikers) are included.

In addition to the snubs for Ngidi, Joseph, Rauf, Archer and Naseem, the likes of Zaman Khan, Adam Milne, Dan Worrall, Luke Wood, Mohammad Hasnain, Reece Topley and Saqib Mahmood all missed selection despite many having full availability and doing well in the BBL previously.

It could speak more to the fact high-quality local quicks are easier to find than spinners, allrounders and top-order bats.

There's still time for Rakheem Cornwall

The 10-Test Antiguan allrounder was the most in-demand overseas player … for fans anyway.

Cornwall nominated but no club wanted to take a punt.

There's still hope though! Replacement international players will be needed as availability, injury and national call-ups invariably strike between now and mid-December when the BBL gets underway.