Perth Scorchers Ink Deal with Indonesia's Economical Bowler Ni Made Putri Suwandewi

During their visit to Bali earlier this year, Ni Made Putri Suwandewi impressed Perth Scorchers women's coach Becky Grundy and high-performance boss Kade Harvey with her menacing inswinger and deceptive slower ball.

After closely monitoring her in the ensuing months, and needing pace depth with veteran quick Piepa Cleary sidelined for the entire summer due to a knee injury, Scorchers have signed Suwandewi for the upcoming WBBL season as an Associate rookie.

"The WBBL has been a competition I have admired from afar for a long time, and I am looking forward to being involved as a player this season," said Suwandewi, who joins a Scorchers team led by New Zealand T20 World Cup winning captain Sophie Devine.

WBBL rules allow clubs to sign players from the Associate nations and place them outside the 15-player squad. Suwandewi, 26, has been a leading player for Indonesia since making her international debut in 2019 and has taken 49 wickets from 40 WT20Is at an average of 8.18. Her career economy of 2.97 is the best in the history of T20I women's cricket.

"She bowls a natural inswinger, but has excellent variety with a good slower ball and can hit the yorkers," Harvey told ESPNcricinfo. "She's quite short, but a really skilful bowler."

Suwandewi arrived in Perth on Saturday and has made an early impression during training. "She's got the potential to play a role for us in the tournament," Harvey said.

"We're going to be missing some international players at different stages. It was a good opportunity to utilise the rules in terms of the Associate rookie. But we wouldn't have done it if we didn't think she was capable of contributing."

Suwandewi's signing emphasises a growing partnership between WA Cricket and Persatuan Cricket Indonesia with an initial focus on women's cricket development.

It led Grundy and Harvey to visit Bali on a four-day trip in April, where they watched Suwandewi play a starring role for Indonesia against Mongolia in various white-ball formats.

"We were really impressed with the standard of cricket from the girls in Indonesia," Harvey said. "They play on astro turf, so we think a big part of their development is getting on good turf wickets.

"But the potential is vast with 200,000 women playing across 21 provinces, which is bigger than what we thought. They've just got such a great work ethic and passion for the game. They probably just need a little bit of help in how to channel that."

While believed to have first been played there in the 1880s, cricket is a minor sport in Indonesia but encouraging progress has been made with the women's team currently ranked 21 in T20Is.

"They want to be a top 10 team in the world," Harvey said. "They've got a really clear goal and we're hoping to facilitate a shift in their high performance environment to help them get there."

Scorchers open the season on October 27 against Melbourne Stars at the WACA.