The 8th edition of the Women’s Big Bash League (W-BBL) got underway on the 13th of October and the Melbourne Renegades with India’s all-format skipper, Harmanpreet Kaur’s late pull out from the tournament, the side has now announced her replacement in Sri Lankan skipper, Chamari Athapaththu.
Melbourne Renegades, Harmanpreet Kaur was the Player of the Tournament in the previous edition of the Bash and her initially unavailability due to national colour duties had Renegades make an overseas replacement singing in Eve Jones, who was signed for the first couple of games. With her now unavailable for the entire tournament due to back issues, Eve Jones received an extension for at least a couple more games until Chamari Athapaththu groups with the team.
It’s a return for the 32-year-old player who had started her Big Bash career with the Melbourne Renegades having debuted in the 03 edition, she then was called in as a replacement player in the 05 edition for the same, Melbourne Renegades club.
In the format, in international cricket, Chamari in 104 innings (106 matches) scored 2181 runs at an average of 21.38 and has got 5 fifty-plus scores and a century to her name with the highest score of 113. Chamari the part-time bowler in 53 innings has picked up 32 wickets with the best figures of 3/17 at an economy rate of 6.89.
Melbourne Renegades has announced Harmanpreet Kaur’s replacement in Sri Lankan skipper, Chamari Athapaththu for WBBL 2022 #CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/VLLpto7H6w
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) October 21, 2022
Chamari Athapaththu in the previous, 07 edition was part of the Perth Scorchers title-winning squad for whom across 10 games she scored 182 runs at an average of 30.33. Commenting on her singing, Melbourne Renegades General Manager, James Rosengarten, said, “We’re thrilled to have Chamari returning to our club and back in red for the remainder of WBBL|08.
“We needed to add another aggressive player to our batting line-up in Harmanpreet’s absence and Chamari is a perfect fit. She brings a wealth of experience at the international level and is a player capable of taking the game away from the opposition quickly. We look forward to her joining us and playing her first game in Ballarat next weekend, which will be our first match in Victoria in more than 1000 days.”
Like, Harmanpreet Kaur, Chamari Athapaththu too returned home from Bangladesh having featured in the 8th edition of the Women’s T20 Asia Cup. She in the tournament struggled to find form and only managed to get going in an innings of 41 that’d come against Pakistan, but did exceedingly well in captaining her side to the Finals, which they eventually went on to lose to India.
(Quotes sourced from cricket.com.au)