'A new team, a new beginning' - Dottin ready to bring her power to UP Warriorz

Deandra Dottin, the West Indies allrounder, is looking at her stint with UP Warriorz (UPW) as "a fresh start" in her WPL chapter. She played eight matches for Gujarat Giants (GG) last season, scoring 142 runs at a strike rate of 154.34 and picking up nine wickets.

"I do look at this as a fresh start. It's a new team, so it is like a new beginning," Dottin tells ESPNcricinfo. "I actually feel warm, welcomed and completely comfortable already."

Dottin was first picked by Giants in the inaugural season but was controversially left out after the franchise said she did not have "medical clearance", a claim which the allrounder refuted publicly. She was not picked by any of the teams in the auction next year, but Giants outbid UPW ahead of last year's WPL auction to select her at a sum that was more than three times her base price. Ahead of the auction for WPL 2026, UPW won the bidding war this time, ahead of Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and picked her for INR 80 lakh.

"I was happy when UP Warriorz raised the paddle for me," Dottin says. "My aim is to play to the best of my ability and take the team to as far as God's given me strength to, and to hopefully lift the trophy. Talking about the team: There are a lot of new faces. I am yet to meet them all. But I am seeing a lot of new players hungry to be part of the game."

Dottin is coming into WPL 2026 on the back of a slightly lean run. She managed only 51 runs in four outings at a strike rate of 102 for Trinbago Knight Riders in the WCPL, and only 84 in eight innings at a strike rate of 103.70 for Melbourne Renegades in the WBBL. But she isn't perturbed by those numbers.

"I try to forget and move on very quickly," Dottin says. "If today I didn't do as I wanted to, I reflect on it. As soon as I leave the ground, I leave it at that. I try to keep my mind clear and not overthink too much, because things tend to happen when you overthink. So I try to work it out very fast - well, this is where we went wrong, this is what I did wrong, this is what I need to do next. As long as I work it out within that day, I leave it right there and just move on.

"I try to build my confidence not really off past things but [by being] in the present, so that I wouldn't need to depend on past things to build that confidence."

Dottin can bowl at a high pace, but her USP is her six-hitting. No one in women's T20Is has hit more sixes than her. In WPL 2025, she has hit just six sixes. But those came at a frequency of 15.3 balls, which was better than those of Smriti Mandhana, Hayley Matthews, Harmanpreet Kaur and Ellyse Perry, all of whom cleared the boundary more times. That is down to her power-hitting routine.

"I normally face a lot of throwdowns at the start of a session to just get the ball feeling on the bat," she says. "It also helps in freeing my arms and getting that bat-swing. Then I try to pick the lengths and my areas where I am going to hit the ball and just imagine the bowler that is actually going to bowl at me in the tournament. It's a matter of not getting too complacent. It is about keeping things simple and playing each ball on its merit."

Dottin will be a key cog for UPW, who finished at the bottom of the table last season. Her first opponents, in the afternoon game on Saturday, are Giants. Will there be extra spice in the contest, then?

"I guess, on that day, we will see."