By Gareth James
Shaheen Afridi, Jess Jonassen and Tom Kohler-Cadmore were the main recruits of the draft to join Welsh Fire for this year’s Hundred tournament.
In the women’s competition, Jess Jonassen was chosen with the Fire’s first pick – joining Tammy Beaumont and Hayley Matthews in Cardiff.
Phoebe Franklin, Ella McCaughan, Claire Nicholas, Alex Griffiths and Jake Ball have also signed for Welsh Fire.
Welsh Fire head coach Mike Hussey said: ‘’I’m extremely excited by our draft adding some real quality to the squad with the dynamic Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who should fit nicely into our environment.
“Getting Shaheen back is incredible for us as he’s absolutely world class and is exciting for the players, the management and most definitely the fans.
“We’re also very happy to get Jake Ball back to the Welsh Fire again. He is a quality person, knows the team and conditions well, and brings a wealth of experience to the team which we’ll need to keep developing.’’
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Elsewhere in The Hundred Draft, Kieron Pollard went to Southern Brave, Meg Lanning to London Spirit and Beth Mooney to Manchester Originals.
Jason Roy and David Warner were overlooked 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.
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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 £1.56 million 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.
The opening game of The Hundred’s fourth year, sees Birmingham Phoenix travel to The Kia Oval on Tuesday 23 July to face Oval Invincibles – the first of 68 games.
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Read here https://t.co/Vg8atwZe9z pic.twitter.com/ckywpLVjJC
— Dai Sport (@Dai_Sport_) August 21, 2023
Welsh Fire’s picks in The Hundred Draft
Women’s: Jess Jonassen, Phoebe Franklin, Ella McCaughan, Claire Nicholas, Alex Griffiths
Men’s: Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Shaheen Afridi, Jake Ball