Smriti Mandhana to skip WBBL again with an eye on India’s upcoming domestic season

India vice-captain Smriti Mandhana has opted out of the WBBL for the second year in a row, as she could play in the upcoming domestic season. She had skipped the 2022-23 WBBL as well to manage her workload and focus on her India commitments during a busy international year.

This time, Mandhana did not put her name in the list of 122 players for the inaugural WBBL overseas draft, and might instead play for Maharashtra in the Indian domestic season which will run from October 19 to January 26 next year, and overlap with the WBBL.

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The WBBL will also kick off on October 19 and go on until December 2, and will also clash partially with India’s busy international home season. In the current FTP, India are set to host South Africa and New Zealand from September-end to October-end for 12 white-ball games, and then host England and Australia from mid-December to mid-January for one Test each, and a combined nine ODIs and T20Is. Mandhana, apart from being deputy to captain Harmanpreet Kaur, is also an important all-format player for India.

India’s women’s domestic season will begin with the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy, to be played from October 19 to November 9. It will be followed by the Senior Women’s Inter-Zonal Trophy, from November 24 to December 4, while after a month, the Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy will run from January 4 to 26. Among the senior women’s tournaments, the T20 Challenger Trophy and the Inter-Zonal One Day Trophy are missing from the calendar which was announced by the BCCI in April this year.

Mandhana, who won the Women’s Hundred final with Southern Brave on Sunday, has played in three of the eight WBBL seasons so far, and represented Brisbane Heat, Hobart Hurricanes and Sydney Thunder.

The women’s calendar saw the addition of the inaugural WPL earlier this year, in which Mandhana was the most expensive player for INR 3.4 crore at the auction, and also captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore, who won just two of their eight games and finished second from bottom.