Scotland captain Kathryn Bryce says it was “fairly surreal” to earn a contract for the 2024 season of the Ladies’s Premier League in India.
Bryce, who made her worldwide debut aged simply 13 and performs her home cricket in England for The Blaze and Manchester Originals, was signed by Gujarat Giants for round £10,000.
Bryce, 26, will develop into solely the second girl from an affiliate nation to play within the WPL after United States’ Tara Norris.
“I had a few conversations final summer time,” she advised BBC Scotland.
“The analyst they’ve can also be the analyst for Manchester Originals’ males’s group, however I hadn’t heard an enormous quantity since so it was only a ready recreation.
“I wasn’t watching the public sale. I used to be driving again from someplace. One of many women was on my telephone doing the music, and he or she was like, ‘You’ve got simply been drafted, you’ve got acquired in’, after which somebody referred to as me as effectively. It was a fairly surreal expertise and actually thrilling.”
The T20 franchise competitors is a ladies’s equal of the lads’s Indian Premier League, the most important match of its type on the earth.
Bryce believes extra alternatives for affiliate gamers can solely assist to develop the sport.
“If different groups see that there are affiliate gamers that come and do effectively, hopefully that may encourage them to be extra open to drafting affiliate gamers sooner or later, as a result of I believe it may be an actual profit to the groups in addition to these gamers,” she added.
“Hopefully I can put in these performances and present them what affiliate gamers are capable of do.”
Competing in different T20 competitions has allowed Bryce to rub shoulders with a number of the recreation’s largest stars, however she is relishing the prospect of taking part in alongside Beth Mooney, Gujarat’s captain and Australian icon, for the primary time.
“Yeah, I have been fairly fortunate [to play with big name players]. I performed with Laura Wolvaardt in Manchester this yr and Phoebe Litchfield on the FairBreak Invitational final yr,” she stated.
“So I performed with them a bit earlier than, however I am actually excited to play alongside Beth Mooney as effectively. She’s been a standout participant in form of all codecs and all competitions and is such a constant performer around the globe.”
‘The goal is to qualify for the World Cup’
It is going to even be an enormous yr for Scotland as they gear up for the 2024 ICC Ladies’s T20 World Cup Qualifier and an opportunity to achieve the World Cup for the primary time.
Bryce starred with bat and ball as Scotland completed first within the European qualifier this yr, and is optimistic about her facet’s possibilities within the subsequent stage.
“It is a actually thrilling group to have the ability to lead in,” Bryce added. “I am seeing a variety of gamers which have performed a variety of cricket actually beginning to come into their very own and put in these performances for Scotland and put their hand up in massive moments.
“The goal is to attempt to qualify for the World Cup. It is all the time going to be a difficult ask with the groups which can be there, however we’ll take it step-by-step.
“If we are able to get into the highest two of our group and get into the semi-finals then we’ll take it from there and attempt to put in pretty much as good a efficiency as potential to provide ourselves an opportunity of successful these video games.”
