There was not going to be an opportunity for Rana to start in our 11: Gujarat coach Klinger
On breaking bank for Simran Shaikh
Leading into the auction, we probably didn’t think she would go that high but she was a player of interest for us in particular because of her power and the strike rate that she batted at in the recent Challenger Trophy. Her strike rate was over 200. That’s very rare in women’s cricket.
We feel that we have a local batting group who can play a very similar way to probably a lot of the other batters that were available. So we were looking at someone different and someone who could bring power to our squad and she was that player.
She’s had a taste of WPL in season one with UP. We’re really excited to have her here and feel that she can win some matches for us with a style about it.
On not picking former Giants captain Sneh Rana
When we were strategising around the players we were looking to retain, there was a clear strategy to pick players who we thought would have the chance of starting in our 11. With us having Ashleigh Gardner as our main offspinner and then two good left unorthodox in Mannat Kashyap, Tanuja Kanwar and of course with Priya Mishra, there was just not going to be an opportunity for her to start in our 11. And Sneh just didn’t quite fit that, but it was a really tough decision because she is a high quality player, I think when we made that decision, it was just after she got 10 wickets in a Test match.
She’s not in the Indian white-ball squads either. She’s a very good white ball player, I was pretty confident she would get picked up elsewhere and get an opportunity maybe to play elsewhere. It hasn’t turned out that way for her. It was great to have her around the group.
On England’s Danielle Gibson
I think she’s a high quality player. We were very lucky to get her at base price. Probably what helped us with that is she has been injured the last few weeks but she’s back playing now.
That probably helped not having other people bidding for her, but she adds a huge amount of versatility for us. She’s a fantastic bowler combined in all phases and can bowl very well at the depth one of the best fielders in the women’s game and a power hitter.