WBBL Preview: Thunder take pressure off superstar for WBBL|10

WBBL|09 result: Fourth (7 wins, 6 losses, 1 no result), defeated by Brisbane Heat in the Eliminator

WBBL|10 Squad: Georgia Adams (England), Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka), Sam Bates, Hannah Darlington, Sienna Eve, Saskia Horley, Shabnim Ismail (South Africa), Sammy-Jo Johnson, Heather Knight (England), Anika Learoyd, Phoebe Litchfield, Claire Moore, Taneale Peschel, Georgia Voll, Tahlia Wilson

Ins: Georgia Adams (Strikers), Sienna Eve, Shabnim Ismail, Georgia Voll (Heat), Taneale Peschel (Scorchers)

Outs: Lauren Smith (Hurricanes), Marizanne Kapp (Stars), Lauren Bell

Potential best XI: Chamari Athapaththu, Tahlia Wilson (wk), Phoebe Litchfield, Georgia Voll, Heather Knight (c), Saskia Horley, Anika Learoyd, Hannah Darlington, Taneale Peschel, Sam Bates, Shabnim Ismail

Player availability: Shabnim Ismail will be available for the whole season for the Thunder after retiring from international cricket last year. Chamari Athapaththu and Georgia Adams will also be available for the whole tournament. The Thunder don't yet have a return date for Heather Knight after she suffered a calf injury in the World Cup. The England medical team has given her the all-clear to join the team in Sydney, but she will also become unavailable when she leaves for England's series against South Africa later in the season.

Inside word with Sydney Thunder coach Lisa Keightley

Chamari Athapaththu powered the Sydney Thunder to a finals appearance in WBBL|09, but coach Lisa Keightley says there's no pressure on the Sri Lankan to repeat her heroics this year. 

Athapaththu took out the Player of the Tournament award after finishing WBBL|09 second for most runs with 552 at a strike rate of 127.19 while also taking nine wickets. 

That performance led to the Thunder signing the Sri Lankan captain on a three-year deal as the side's international pre-selection signing, with coach Lisa Keightley acknowledging a repeat of last year would be a "bonus".

"There's no doubt she had an amazing season last year, and it's probably a bit unrealistic to expect her to be able to do that again. If she did, it would be a bonus," Keightley said. 

Athapaththu will again have the support of Australian Phoebe Litchfield, and the addition of South African pace bowler Shabnim Ismail also makes the Thunder look poised for a return to finals.

Expectations on Chamari: There's no doubt she had an amazing season last year, and it's probably a bit unrealistic to expect her to be able to do that again. If she did, it would be a bonus. If she can get half or even three quarters of those runs this year, she'll still have a really good season, and I have no doubt she'll win us matches again throughout this season. I think we need to be really realistic about the expectations, but she is a quality player, and I know she's another one who we view as a senior player to lead a young group and she loves that responsibility. She fits in well, so I feel like she's got the best chance of repeating it and she will be hoping to do that. If she doesn't, I know she'll still have a pretty solid season for us and win games of cricket for us like she did last year.

Retaining Heather Knight: She's a really experienced player who brings a lot to our group and has been in and around the group for a number of years. I think her experience in quite a young batting lineup and her leadership qualities in and around the team is really good for us. Because we're quite a young group having someone of her experience and leadership, we relied on her to bring a few of our other young leaders through last year and hopefully she'll be able to do that again this year.

Who takes over captaincy when Heather Knight leaves: We're still working that out. We've got a couple of options. Tahlia Wilson was captain during the Spring Challenge for us. We've got Chamari Athapaththu, who is captain of her country, and we've got a few other girls that we're looking at. We realise with Heather we don't want to have her as captain every time, so we're looking at opportunities and chances to up skill some of our domestic players. We also signed Georgia Adams, who's captaining New South Wales at the minute as well. So we've got a few options. It's just a matter of working out the timing and who's ready for it.

Drafting Shabnim Ismail: She won a championship for us when she was with the club. She's an overseas player that you know you're going to have for the whole tournament, because she's retired from international cricket, and losing Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim gives us that wicket taker in the power play, she can pick up wickets if there's a partnership in the middle and has experience bowling at the death. She will be a really key cog for us after losing Marizanne Kapp. I think she likes playing for the Thunder. She'll know a lot of the domestic players, like Heather, who knows the squad pretty well as an international player and is pretty comfortable playing for the Thunder.

Using four draft selections: We obviously knew Heather was not going to be with us for the whole tournament and we wanted that player to not just come in a game before. We wanted that player to be in and around the squad and not having to worry about after the draft because you never know who you're going to get. A lot of the other clubs are generally after the same sort of person. We thought let's just use our four picks, that way they'll be able to come over and be with the group the whole way through and hopefully give us a bit of a seamless transition of when they're coming in. Georgia was already over here, so we just thought we didn't want to muck around after the draft in replacing Heather. We just wanted to do it there and then, and we thought she was a pretty good fit in the same sort of role, we just wanted to do it up front.

Where Georgia Voll will bat: Tahlia Wilson did really well for us last year opening up the batting, so it's going to be a pretty tight call. I think Volly will definitely bat in the top four and we'll just see how their form is going into that. The Spring Challenge was an opportunity for both of them to see how they're playing and what their form is and we'll have to make a hard decision when we come around to WBBL. But that's what we want in our squad, is to be making hard decisions. We'll just have to wait and see but she'll definitely feature somewhere in the top four I'd say.

Key to impacting in finals: We wanted to see experienced senior players that were the international players who are pretty consistent and bring leadership qualities. And I think that gave domestic players confidence. And then, you know, they're getting older and more experienced, and knowing what WBBL is all about, so I think they fitted into their roles really well, and we just gave them really clear role clarity, and now we wanted them to go about it how we wanted to play, and they embraced all that. It always helps to win a few games up front to give them that confidence and belief and a bit of momentum. We did that last year, and hopefully we can win a few games early again to get on a bit of a roll.

Playing on the SCG: Every domestic player and international player loves the history of the SCG, playing there is pretty special. Each time we play our rival club, you want it to be a good game, and the Sixers look like they've got a very strong squad this year. They'll be out to improve from last year, where for them, I suppose they would think it was pretty disappointing with a few injuries and not to finish in the top four. I have no doubt they'll be raring to go this year to play well, so we'll definitely have to play well to beat them. That's usually the rivalry of the derby, isn't it?

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