Strikers mull replacement for tardy Taylor

Adelaide Strikers are set to start the Rebel WBBL season without international star Stafanie Taylor, as they mull the option of using the league’s unique replacement player pool to cover the West Indies captain for this weekend’s matches.

Taylor arrived in Australia on October 12 and will clear her hotel quarantine requirements in Sydney on Monday morning. The WBBL season starts on Sunday.

The Strikers play the Sydney Sixers at North Sydney Oval on Monday afternoon, but it is highly unlikely the allrounder would immediately take the field following two weeks of 'hard' quarantine where she hasn't been able to train.

Border closures and compulsory quarantine mean teams do not have the freedom they have had in previous seasons to parachute in replacement overseas players when needed.

The biosecurity measures in place at the WBBL Village in Sydney Olympic Park also prevent clubs from being able to bring in local replacement players at a moment's notice.

However, a move from the league pre-empting player availability issues means clubs will still have options when unexpected issues arise.

To ensure the competition has coverage in the event of injuries, or if players need to leave the hub mid-season for any other reason, an additional 20 players are living and training in the WBBL Village alongside the eight teams.

The four New Zealand and 16 local players are not contracted to any one team – although each are assigned a ‘host’ club to train with – instead forming a pool of replacement players that any club can sign.

Suzie Bates said the club had not yet decided whether they would use one of the four New Zealand players – Katie Perkins (who is training with the Strikers), Lauren Down, Rosemary Mair or Holly Huddleston – in place of Taylor this weekend.

"That is an option; we’ll talk about it after the warm-up games," Bates told cricket.com.au.

"We’ve got that up our sleeve, but with our local batters, we back them to do a job.

"We had Katie Perkins training with us this week so we’ll see how the squad looks, and when Staf is available (before making a decision)."

The four White Ferns stayed on in Australia following the trans-Tasman limited-overs matches earlier this month, while the majority of the local replacement players hold state contracts, but not WBBL deals.

They include Emily Smith, who previously played for Hobart Hurricanes, and Anna Lanning, who was a replacement player for the Renegades in WBBL|05 but who is training with the Stars in the Sydney hub.

The New Zealand quartet can be used to replace any overseas player, or an Australian marquee player if a club does not already have three overseas players on their books – a situation that only applies to Sydney Sixers.

Should a club sign a replacement player and not use them in either of their next two matches, that player returns to the open market for others to sign.

Clubs can also use a player and then release them back into the pool, meaning a single replacement player could represent more than one team in WBBL|06.

The pool does not include any of the replacement players already signed by clubs prior to arriving in the Sydney Olympic Park hub; including New Zealand pacer Hayley Jensen who is attached to the Hurricanes.