5 Players Who Missed Out: Kia Super League 2018

We have a bigger Kia Super League coming up in a day with double the number of games and double the entertainment with 12 games being televised live on Sky Cricket and 4 Surrey home games on their official website. There are lots of exciting new additions including the India captaincy duo of Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana also that of Racheal Haynes, Nicole Bolton and the young Amelia Kerr. But there are a few players who are out of an electrifying KSL ahead of the World T20 in November.



 



Ellyse Perry (Australia)



The world’s No. 1 all-rounder, Ellyse Perry, can take her place in any XI. She opens the innings for the Sydney Sixers in WBBL, bats in the middle order for the Southern Stars also partners Megan Schutt opening the bowling. The fans will surely miss the Australian superstar and so will Loughborough Lightning as she takes time off to spend with her family ahead of another gruelling season.



 



Megan Schutt (Australia)



The Australian pacer is by far the most dangerous bowler in World Cricket today. According to Southern Stars coach Matthew Mott, she is the benchmark for pace bowlers in World T20 cricket. So is her aura that she was one of the 10 foreign internationals in the IPL exhibition game. A team like Loughborough Lightning could have benefitted greatly having Schutt with Ellyse Perry not able to turn up for them.



 



Deandra Dottin (West Indies)



The world’s most dangerous batter, Deandra Dottin, was the first female cricketer to hit 2 T20I hundreds when she struck her second one against Sri Lanka last October. She may not have been very consistent with the bat over the years but can easily turn the game single-handedly on her day. A team like Southern Vipers could have profited a lot having her lower down the order to pinch a few sixes in the death overs.



 



Chloe Tryon (South Africa)



With the kind of form, she is in, many would have doubted that she wouldn’t make the cut in this edition of the Kia Super League and yet misses out. She smacked sixes like nobody else when India toured South Africa in February and continued that form against Bangladesh. She could have done something similar to Dottin.



 



Hayley Matthews (West Indies)



The 20-year-old from Barbados is the No. 1 all-rounder in the ICC Rankings and yet doesn’t find a place in any of the 6 KSL teams. She has played for both Lancashire Thunder and Southern Vipers but they looked elsewhere this year. She opens the batting for the Windies and bowls off-break. In a short career, she has already scored close to 1400 runs and has taken 66 wickets. Having her open the innings for Lancashire Thunder alongside Nicole Bolton should have been fun to watch.



 



Honourable Mentions: Alyssa Healy, Meg Lanning, Jess Jonassen (All 3 Australia), Poonam Yadav (India), Anam Amin (Pakistan), Nahida Akter, Rumana Ahmed (All 2 Bangladesh), Leigh Kasperek (New Zealand), Isobel Joyce (Ireland).