The Hobart Hurricanes can announce the exciting signing of New Zealand international Suzie Bates to their WBBL|10 squad.
Bates joins the Hurricanes after an extensive WBBL career where she has featured in nine out of ten possible seasons and brings a wealth of experience to their line-up.
The Hurricanes drafted Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Chloe Tryon whilst retaining Lizelle Lee on their list but the availability of Wyatt-Hodge has left an overseas spot open towards the back end of the tournament.
This has allowed the Hurricanes to sign a fourth overseas player as a replacement for Wyatt-Hodge, and the New Zealand opener, Bates, fit into their plans perfectly.
Bates has scored 2229 runs at an average of 26.22 which has her sitting at 12th overall in the WBBL run-scorers list and has played 100 games in the WBBL which will bring plenty of experience to the Hurricanes squad.
Her international career has also seen the 37-year-old play 166 Women’s International T20s at an average of 29.54 and 163 Women’s One Day International matches at 40.55.
Bates played against Australia last night in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, and fellow Hurricanes Tryon and Wyatt-Hodge played against each other on Monday night, with England defeating South Africa by seven wickets as Wyatt-Hodge scored 43 runs.
General Manager of High Performance, Salliann Beams, is pleased to have locked in another world-class talent to the Hurricanes list.
"Bringing Suzie into our WBBL squad just made sense as soon as we saw she was not selected in the WBBL|10 Draft, we thought she would be the perfect replacement for Danni once we knew her availability.
"She provides more than 130 games of World T20 cricket and will give us an experienced operator when we lose someone of Danni's ability in our line-up," said Beams.
The Hobart Hurricanes WBBL|10 squad is now very close to being finalised, with one further local spot to be announced later this week.
Suzie Bates joins Nicola Carey, Heather Graham, Ruth Johnston, Lizelle Lee (O/S), Hayley Silver-Holmes, Tabatha Saville, Amy Smith, Lauren Smith, Molly Strano, Rachel Trenaman, Chloe Tryon (O/S), Elyse Villani, Callie Wilson, and Danni Wyatt-Hodge (O/S).
WBBL|10 is less than three weeks away from starting with Hobart’s first game against the Sydney Thunder at Bellerive Oval on 28 October.
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