The Women’s Premier League (WPL) is all set for its first player auction from 2:30 PM on February 13, which will see 449 players up for bidding and five franchises in the race to get top players in their squad.
The marquee players in the auction list include India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, star openers Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Varma, all-rounders Deepti Sharma, Ellyse Perry, Sophie Ecclestone, Deandra Dottin.
The players, who are likely to fetch the highest bid, are Hayley Matthews, Sophie Devine, Ashleigh Gardner, Kaur, Mandhana, Ecclestone and Perry among others.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra expects Smriti Mandhana to trigger bidding wars and become the most expensive player. It is expected that the vice-captain of India in all formats will go for a bid of Rs 4.5 crore.
Giving tough competition to Mandhana will be the captain of the India Women’s National Cricket Team in all formats, Harmanpreet Kaur, who is estimated to see bids going as high as Rs 5 crore.
Top batters, both Kaur and Mandhana, have high scores against their names. While Kaur has close to 3,000 T20I (T20 International) runs and 3,322 in ODIs (One day international), Mandhana has a T20I record of 2,651 runs in 111 matches and over 3,000 runs in 77 ODIs.
Another Indian player, who is expected to fetch top bids, is Deepti Sharma. She expected to go for Rs 3.5 crore. Sharma, an all-rounder has played 86 T20I matches so far and has bagged 92 wickets in 84 matches for the Indian team.
Among foreign players, Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner and England’s Sophie Ecclestone are likely to be on the list of the top five big buys. The bid for Gardner is expected to go for Rs 4 crore and Rs 3 crore for Ecclestone.
There are four categories for the WPL auction with the top base price starting at Rs 50 lakh followed by Rs 40 lakh, Rs 20 lakh and Rs 10 lakh. A total of 24 players have chosen the top base price. Bids up to Rs 1 crore would be in increments of Rs 5 lakh, from Rs 1-2 crore in increments of Rs 10 lakh, and beyond Rs 2 crore in increments of Rs 20 lakh.
The youngest players in the WPL auction are fast bowler Shabnam MD and left-arm spinner Sonam Yadav, both are part of the India Under-19 team along with left-arm spinner Vinny Suzan from Andhra Pradesh. All these players have a base price of Rs 10 lakh.
In the oldest category, Latika Kumari (41) and Zimbabwe’s Precious Marange (40) will be part of the auction.
A total of 449 players are part of the WPL auction, who will be chosen by the five franchises, including Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Giants and UP Warriors.
Each team has a purse of Rs 12 crore for the auction, of which a minimum of Rs 9 crore has to be spent to build their squads. All five franchises have a maximum of 90 slots available, with 30 slots for overseas players.
