Australian pacer Mitchell Starc will miss this year’s Men’s Hundred tournament, as he withdrew his name from the list of players participating in the draft, which will take place on Thursday.
Starc is currently in India with Australia’s squad, having concluded both the red-ball and white-ball legs of the tour. India won the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test series by 2-1 while Australia clinched the ODI series 2-1. Starc was one of the few multi-format Australian stars having put his name in the competition, which will get underway a day after the end of fifth Ashes Test against England.
Having entered the draft last month, Starc would have been a tempting option for one of five vacant £125,000 slots available for overseas players. Northern Superchargers, which his wife Alyssa Healy represents, did not have the availability in that price bracket.
Starc was previously lined up as a top draft pick by Superchargers ahead of the 2022 draft as well, but withdrew shortly before the registration deadline.
A number of prominent overseas players have withdrawn their names from the draft, including Australia’s Jhye Richardson, South African international players Anrich Nortje, Aiden Markram and Tristan Stubbs. Nortje was unveiled as Washington (DC) Freedom’s marquee pick for the inaugural Major League Cricket (MLC) tournament in the USA, which will run from July 13 to 30. The Hundred will start from August 1.
From women cricketers, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland and Tayla Vlaeminck are notable absentees. They have joined other Australian women stars like Meg Lanning, Ashleigh Gardner and Tahlia McGrath, who secured big deals with their respective franchises in the inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL) in India. Sutherland had previously been retained player for Welsh Fire.
Laurie Evans, the player of the match in the 2022 Big Bash final is included in the draft after his provisional ban following a positive drug test was lifted.
Some other notable names include England wicketkeeper-batter Ben Foakes, Bangladesh’s Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan, Pakistan’s Babar Azam, Mohammed Rizwan, Haris Rauf, Shaheen Shah Afridi, India’s Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur, Australia’s Mitchell Marsh, Marcus Stoinis, New Zealand’s Trent Boult etc.