Harmanpreet Kaur to miss WBBL due to a back injury

By Sarvesh Joshi October 20, 2022

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur on Wednesday withdrew from participating in the ongoing Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) for the Melbourne Renegades due to a back injury.

Renegades all-rounder Harmanpreet, had earlier missed their opening two matches against Adelaide Strikers and Brisbane Heat due to international commitments where she led India to their seventh Women’s Asia Cup victory in Sylhet, Bangladesh.

Simon Helmot, the Renegades coach, was confident that Kaur would be joining the side for the rest of the campaign and had said that her workload would be carefully monitored after she reached Australia.

“Harmanpreet was fantastic for us last season and we were looking forward to having her as part of our squad again this year, but unfortunately she has been ruled out through injury,” said James Rosengarten, Melbourne Renegades general manager.

England batter Eve Jones was signed as an overseas replacement last week. “Eve will stay on with our squad for at least the next couple of matches, as we work through the best strategy for our squad for the remainder of the tournament,” Rosengarten said.

Harmanpreet was named Player of the Tournament in the previous season of WBBL for scoring 406 runs at a strike rate of 130.96 and getting 15 wickets in 13 games. However, Renegades did not make the final as they lost the challenger match against Adelaide Strikers.

With her off-spin, she picked 15 wickets at an average of 20.86 and economy rate of 7.45 as she finished in top-10 of both leading run-scorers and wicket-takers of the season. Harmanpreet had become the only third overseas player to be named WBBL’s player of the tournament after New Zealand captain Sophie Devine (who got the honour twice) and former all-rounder Amy Satterthwaite.

India’s vice-captain Smriti Mandhana had already withdrawn from this season of the WBBL to manage her workload. On the other hand, India’s middle-order batter Jemimah Rodrigues has joined the Melbourne Stars after top scoring in the Women’s Asia Cup while pace bowling all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar is also on her way to join Brisbane Heat in the WBBL.