Rashid a 'no-brainer' but Brook 'box office'

Melbourne Stars are adamant Ashes nemesis Harry Brook will be a "box office" recruit in KFC BBL|13 after their attempts to draft Rashid Khan were thwarted for the second year in a row.

Stars general manager Blair Crouch called the superstar leg-spinner's name with the first pick in Sunday's draft, but it only took a few seconds for Adelaide Strikers coach Jason Gillespie to activate their retention rights and bring the club's all-time leading wicket-taker back for a seventh consecutive season.

"I wouldn't have been allowed back into South Australia (if we didn't pick Rashid)," Gillespie said during the Fox Cricket broadcast.

"It was a no-brainer for us. For any team, if Rashid Khan is available you would look to pick him … he is the best spinner in the world.

"I think any team in the Melbourne Stars' position would do exactly the same thing."

Crouch told cricket.com.au they never expected to keep Afghanistan's T20 captain but after trading Australia white-ball spinner Adam Zampa to crosstown rivals the Melbourne Renegades during the off-season, they needed to secure a replacement in the draft.

"The second the Strikers let him go, he'll never return to Adelaide because whoever picks him up will never let him go from a retention point of view," he said.

The Stars then took Brook – who previously played for Hobart Hurricanes in BBL|11 but was not eligible to be retained – with the No.2 pick in the draft before adding crowd favourite Haris Rauf with their second-round pick and securing their spinner – emerging Pakistan leggie Usama Mir – with their fourth-round selection.

Brook joins World Cup winners Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis in a star-studded top-order.

"Box office, he's someone that people want to see play," Crouch said of Brook, who blazed a 41-ball century for the Northern Superchargers in the Hundred last month, which was his third century in the format.

"He does stretch our batting so we can probably reorder down to number seven, and maybe for some of the guys at the top of the order that can allow them to play really freely.

"Tommy Rogers and Sam Harper as a new opening combo can be really aggressive knowing you've got Maxwell, Stoinis, Brook, (Hilton) Cartwright and (Beau) Webster to come down the order.

"He was certainly someone we wanted to pick up both from a performance point of view but also a fan point of view.

"Someone like Harry is potentially a once in a generation player. There were a lot of benefits to picking him up aside from just the on-field talent so he was certainly a natural selection for us."

Brook is likely to be available for six or seven games this season with his BBL|13 campaign bookended by international commitments with England scheduled to play a T20I series against the West Indies until December 22 and a five-Test series against India beginning on January 25.

Rauf – who returns for his fourth season with the MCG-based club – will be available for up to nine games, while Mir – a tall leg-spinner who debuted for Pakistan in ODIs in January – is available for the full season and finals.

The Renegades, meanwhile, filled their wicketkeeping void following the departure of Harper by taking South Africa star Quinton de Kock with the fifth pick in Sunday's draft.

The Gades also secured the return of Mujeeb Ur Rahman for a second successive season with their second-round pick.

Renegades general manager James Rosengarten revealed he'd been chatting to de Kock for about two years to try and get him into the Big Bash and once he was in the draft pool he was the club's top priority.

"What we learned from last year was to take the best player available for what you need," Rosengarten said.

"Coming into the draft needing a wicketkeeper-batter and a bowler, you can take the players that you want so we had some good flexibility if things didn't go our way."

De Kock is expected to play eight games before leaving the Big Bash to fulfil his South African T20 league commitments, meaning the Renegades – who are yet to re-sign Victoria captain Peter Handscomb – will need to find a replacement wicketkeeper for the finals two matches of the regular season and finals.

That 'keeper could still be an overseas player after the Renegades opted to pass twice and finish the draft with just two picks, and they will now negotiate directly to sign a third primary overseas player from the remaining 353 nominees that weren't selected.

Another team to take that approach were Perth Scorchers who passed in the first round for the second year in a row before selecting England Test opener Zak Crawley and BBL|11 player of the final Laurie Evans with their second and third picks respectively.

They then passed again with their fourth pick and like the Renegades and Sydney Thunder, will look to sign a third primary overseas player from the players not selected in the draft.

Evans was due to again join the Scorchers last season after the club retained him in the BBL|12 Draft before he was provisionally suspended due to a doping violation.

The 35-year-old was allowed to return to playing in mid-March and he has since played for Manchester Originals in this year's Hundred, Surrey in the T20 Blast and is currently representing Barbados Royals in the Caribbean Premier League.

However, Evans faces another hearing over the positive doping test in the coming months before the BBL|13 season begins, but Scorchers head coach Adam Voges said the middle-order batter was confident he would be allowed to keep playing cricket.

"We missed Laurie last year … but we're really pleased to see him back playing cricket and we're really pleased to have him back again," Voges said.

"We could have potentially taken Laurie at the gold (tier) if we thought that was the best option, but we had a few on our list that should they sneak through we were pretty keen to get and Zak was certainly one of those.

"We saw what he did in the Ashes, but I thought watching him play for the Hurricanes last year, I saw some really good signs – a really tall batter who plays good cricket shots and has some serious power.

"That's sort of the prototype of player that we want particularly at Optus Stadium who can handle the pace and the bounce and hopefully get us off to a couple of quick starts."