The Pakistan quartet of Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shadab Khan, Haris Rauf and Mohammad Rizwan are part of the first overseas draft list of BBL 15 released on Tuesday. The draft will be held on June 19 with Brisbane Heat holding the No. 1 pick and having the first chance to pick a player.
Sam Curran and Alex Hales from England, Lockie Ferguson and Tim Southee from New Zealand, Sri Lanka's Kusal Perera and West Indies' Shamar Joseph are the other six players in the first draft list of 10 players.
In the WBBL, the Indian pair of Shikha Pandey and Jemimah Rodrigues are in the first nomination list, alongside Deandra Dottin of West Indies and Fatima Sana of Pakistan. England's Lauren Bell, Sophie Ecclestone, Heather Knight and Danni Wyatt-Hodge are part of the list too, as are the South African pair of Shabnim Ismail and Chloe Tryon.
The draft for the upcoming BBL and WBBL seasons have been brought forward to June to provide clubs more certainty about player selection. According to a CA statement, over 600 overseas players have registered interest for the BBL and WBBL.
The teams have already started building their squads. Jamie Overton and Laura Wolvaardt (Adelaide Strikers), Colin Munro and Nadine de Klerk (Brisbane Heat), Chris Jordan (Hobart Hurricanes), Tim Seifert and Hayley Matthews (Melbourne Renegades), Tom Curran and Marizanne Kapp (Melbourne Stars), Finn Allen and Sophie Devine (Perth Scorchers), Amelia Kerr (Sydney Sixers), Sam Billings and Chamari Athapaththu (Sydney Thunder) are the overseas players to have been pre-signed already.
This season, Heat and Sixers will have first picks for the BBL and WBBL drafts respectively. Both drafts consist of four rounds, with all teams receiving one pick in each round. Teams can select a player who has made themselves available to be drafted in one of four overseas player salary bands: Platinum (round 1 or 2), Gold (round 2 or 3), Silver (round 3 or 4) or Bronze (round 4 only). Teams must use at least three picks including pre-signed players and can pass once.