The inaugural Women's Premier League (WPL) auction will be held on Monday and according to Cricbuzz, it can be an all-woman affair with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) opting for a woman auctioneer. The report suggested that Malika Advani will be the auctioneer for the event with five franchises looking to build their squads ahead of the competition. Advani is a Mumbai-based art collector consultant for Modern and Contemporary Indian art and she currents works with Art India Consultants firm. Hugh Edmeades, Richard Madley and Charu Sharma have conducted the auctions for Indian Premier League in the past but Advani will become the first female auctioneer.
The WPL auction will see the participation of 409 cricketers from around the world with 246 of them being Indians. 163 of them are overseas talents with eight coming from associate nations. There will be five different slabs of base prices - INR 50 lakh, INR 40 lakh, INR 30 lakh, INR 20 lakh and INR 10 lakh. 24 players were chosen to be part of the marquee bracket â the top among all participants.
Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma, Ellyse Perry, Sophie Ecclestone, Sophie Devine and Deandra Dottin will be the ones to watch out for the auction with highest prices.
"The franchisees are reminded of the WPL squad rules with respect to a minimum (15) and maximum (18) squad size, minimum squad spend (INR 9 Crore) and the maximum number of overseas players in the squad (6),â the BCCI statement read ahead of the auction.
