Australia’s rising spin allrounder Alana King has named four-time Indian Premier League champions Chennai Super Kings as her team of preference for a women’s version of the game’s biggest T20 league.
Speaking to India Today, the 26-year-old explained why she wants to play for the Super Kings in a WIPL in future. The youngster cited her parents’ association with Chennai and her roots to the city down south in India as the reason behind her choice.
“Given both my parents are from Chennai and I have been following Chennai Super Kings from the inception of the IPL, yeah be rude not for me to be asking Chennai to be my team of choice.
Definitely, I will be trying to ask CSK to hopefully get a women’s team up and running and yeah that will be my team of choice for sure,”
she said.
The 26-year-old is currently in India, going through her maiden stint in the Women’s T20 Challenge, considered a precursor to a long-awaited full-fledged version of the Women’s IPL, which is expected to have a seismic impact on the Indian women’s game and global cricket as well.
Representing former champions Supernovas, she says she is trying to maximise her time in India by learning Hindi from her teammates. Part of India veteran Harmanpreet Kaur’s side, the spin allrounder says learning Hindi and Tamil is of keen interest to her. Despite her roots in Chennai, King says she doesn’t know Tamil at all as her parents moved to Melbourne when she was very young.
“My parents can speak Tamil but they didn’t really teach my brother and I any Tamil so I may know a few words but can’t understand it or speak it fluently,”
said King, who also revealed that teammate Harleen Deol has been teaching her Hindi.
Rising through the ranks in Australian cricket via her time in the Women’s Big Bash League and The Hundred in the UK, King played her part in Australia’s surge to another 50-over World Cup trophy in New Zealand this year. The wristspinner bagged 12 wickets from nine matches in the tournament, carrying an economy rate of 4.52.
