The first-ever Women’s Premier Auction is set to take place in Mumbai with all five franchises ready to get engrossed in bidding war. A total of 409 players will go under the hammer in the auction which will see female auctioneer Mallika Sagar take over the proceedings. When BCCI had opened the players registration in January, a total of 1525 cricketers have signed up but the list was cut down to 409 as franchises made their picks. Out of these 409 players, 256 players are Indians while 163 are overseas.
The number of capped players is 202 while 199 are uncapped players and 8 from associate nations are part of the auction process. Maximum of 90 slots are available for the five franchises. Maximum strength of a squad can be of 18 players while minimum can be 15 players.
Not to forget, the highest reserve price in the auction is Rs 50 lakh and the minimum is Rs 10 lakh. There are 24 players in the highest reserve price bracket including Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma, Ellyse Perry and Ash Gardner.
The first edition of the league will kickstart on March 4 and will go on till March 26. There will be 22 matches played in first edition of WPL and two venues have been finalized for all the games by BCCI. The matches will be played at Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai and DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.