England captain Heather Knight has withdrawn from the upcoming season of the Ladies’s Premier League 2024 introduced the league on Saturday.
Her franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore have, as a substitute, named South African all-rounder Nadine de Klerk as her substitute.
de Klerk who bowls medium-fast and bats right-handed, has featured in 30 ODIs and 46 T20Is for her nation. She has scored 419 runs and claimed 35 wickets in T20Is.
Knight had scored 135 runs and picked up 4 wickets within the eight matches she performed las season.
This makes Knight the second participant to withdraw for the season. Earlier, English quick bowler Lauren Bell withdrew from the league. In consequence, her UP Warriorz named Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu as a substitute for Bell.
Among the many strongest hitters within the recreation, the Lankan captain can also be one of the skilled gamers, having featured in over 120 T20Is and surprisingly went unsold within the public sale.
Athapaththu, who scored 470 runs in 16 Twenty20 Internationals final 12 months, had an incredible season within the shortest format. She led Sri Lanka to a historic first collection victory over England and concluded the collection as each the highest scorer and joint prime wicket-taker.
This 12 months, she additionally topped the charts of the Ladies’s Massive Bash League as the highest run scorer.
She has been signed for her base value of INR 30 lakh.
The England gamers’ withdrawal is probably going as a consequence of their preparation for the New Zealand collection, which begins in Dunedin simply two days after the WPL last in Delhi, in keeping with ESPN Cricinfo.
The second version of the WPL is anticipated to start on February 23 with the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru and the Arun Jaitley Stadium, New Delhi being the designated venues for the occasion.