Jason Roy and David Warner were overlooked in The Hundred draft as Andrew Flintoff kick-started a West Indies rush by snapping up Nicholas Pooran with his first pick.
Roy was released by Oval Invincibles after a modest past couple of seasons and a £100,000 base price plus his expected participation in Major League Cricket, which has a minor schedule clash with The Hundred this year, seems to have put off potential bidders.
England’s 2019 World Cup-winning opening batter was not the only big name snub as Australia left-hander Warner, New Zealand’s Kane Williamson and Pakistan’s Babar Azam were also unsold.
Instead, there was a distinct Caribbean flavour at the outset of the men’s draft as five of the seven buys in the top-tier £125,000 bracket went on big-hitting Windies stars.
Former England captain Flintoff, having been appointed Northern Superchargers men’s head coach in November in his first official role since returning to cricket, plumped for Pooran, who was bought for 2million US dollars (around £1.56million) in this year’s Indian Premier League auction.
After finishing bottom of the pile last year, the Superchargers had the first chance to fill up their squads at an event hosted at the Shard on Wednesday and Flintoff also added Daniel Sams for £100,000, Tom Lawes for £50,000 and Graham Clark for £40,000 to his roster.
London Spirit offered £125,000 deals to Andre Russell and Shimron Hetmyer while Rovman Powell and Kieron Pollard are set to receive the same remuneration from Trent Rockets and Southern Brave respectively.
As there is no schedule clash between The Hundred and the Caribbean Premier League this year, many teams have stocked up on proven Windies talents.
Welsh Fire paid £125,000 for Tom Kohler-Cadmore as did Birmingham Phoenix for Pakistan quick Naseem Shah, while England duo Ollie Pope and Dawid Malan were purchased for £50,000 by Oval Invincibles and London Spirit respectively.
Mark Wood was also conspicuously overlooked at a reserve price of £100,000 for a tournament scheduled to start on July 23 and run to August 18, although England stringently manage his workload and it seems likely the express quick will be involved in a Test against the West Indies starting on July 26.
Those who were disregarded in the draft could still feature this year, swapping in for anyone who drops out at their base price limit or higher. For example, Shaheen Shah Afridi went to Welsh Fire for £100,000 but if he was unavailable, the Cardiff-based team could select Roy or Wood as a replacement.
A total of 75 spots were filled, including 26 for the overseas contingent, across both drafts. In the women’s draft, Birmingham Phoenix retained England wicketkeeper-batter Amy Jones as their first pick.
With vaunted Australia stars Meg Lanning, Ashleigh Gardner and Beth Mooney all in the reckoning, it was a curious selection from the Phoenix, who added another two wicketkeepers to their ranks in Richa Ghosh and Seren Smale.
Mooney, the world’s number one T20 batter, was chosen by Manchester Originals while former Australia captain Lanning, who announced her international retirement late last year, was also in the top women’s pay bracket of £50,000 and is set to join England skipper Heather Knight at London Spirit.
Gardner and Annabel Sutherland also got top whack with Trent Rockets and Northern Superchargers respectively, as did Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu at Oval Invincibles and India’s Smriti Mandhana at Southern Brave.
Jemimah Rodrigues, Deandra Dottin and Suzie Bates were among the high-profile players not to get deals.