In The Hundred draft, Andrew Flintoff ignited a West Indies frenzy by selecting Nicholas Pooran with his first pick, leaving Jason Roy and David Warner unnoticed.
After a mediocre couple of seasons with Oval Invincibles, Roy was released. His anticipated involvement in Major League Cricket, which has a minor schedule clash with The Hundred this year, along with a £100,000 base price appears to have turned off possible 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.
