MEL­BOURNE – West In­dies open­er Shai Hope was re­ward­ed for his re­cent out­stand­ing per­for­mances when he was se­lect­ed by the Ho­bart Hur­ri­canes dur­ing the Big Bash League draft in Aus­tralia on Sun­day.

Hope, who was named Play­er-of-the-Se­ries fol­low­ing the West In­dies’ 3-0 white­wash of South Africa in the just com­plet­ed T20 se­ries, was picked by the Hur­ri­canes in the plat­inum cat­e­go­ry for the tour­na­ment which will run De­cem­ber 15 to Jan­u­ary 26.

He will be re­unit­ed with head coach Ricky Ponting, who was al­so his head coach at the Del­hi Cap­i­tals in the In­di­an Pre­mier League for the 2024 sea­son.

It will be Hope’s first sea­son in the Big Bash.

Mean­while, the 26-year-old Sher­fane Ruther­ford, who will al­so be mak­ing his de­but in the Big Bash, was cho­sen by the Syd­ney Thun­der in the sil­ver cat­e­go­ry.

West In­di­ans Akeal Ho­sein, Fabi­an Allen and Bar­ba­di­an-born Ja­cob Bethell were al­so draft­ed.

Ho­sein was draft­ed by the Syd­ney Six­ers in the gold cat­e­go­ry, even though he is on­ly avail­able for sev­en games this sea­son.

Allen will turn out for the Ade­laide Strik­ers and Bethell, who was re­cent­ly cho­sen by Eng­land to play in the up­com­ing T20 se­ries against Aus­tralia, will play for the Mel­bourne Rene­gades.

CMC