Team India’s star batter Smriti Mandhana looked ecstatic as she watched the bidding war between Women’s Premier League (WPL) teams post which she became the most expensive player in the league. With just purse of Rs 12 crore for every team, 3 teams got into a stiff bidding war and eventually it was Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) who had the last laugh, buying at record price of Rs 3.40 crore. Jio Cinema, the official broadcaster of the WPL, shared the video of Mandhana’s reaction to the bidding war as well as her final price tag. Mandhana could not control her happiness over the big price she fetched at the auction as Indian players cheered for her.
After the auction, Mandhana gave an interview to Jio Cinema in which she said that she feels happy to be joining the RCB camp. She posted a tweet in reply to RCB’s post on the social media app and wrote: “Namaskara Bengaluru”.
Check out Mandhana’s tweet below:
Namaskara Bengaluru ___ — Smriti Mandhana (@mandhana_smriti) February 13, 2023
RCB have built a strong squad. Mandhana has been joined by Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry and Renuka Thakur. Mandhana said that she always used to watch the Men’s IPL auction with a lot of excitement and to see her own name in the same auction is really nice.
India captain Harmanpreet Kaur was bought by Mumbai Indians for Rs 1.80 crore while explosive opener Shafali Verma went to Delhi Capitals for Rs 2 crore. Harman is also not the highest paid in her team where England’s Nat Sciver-Brunt got way more at Rs 3.20 crore. In fact, Harmanpreet was not even among the top-four Indian buys as the second costliest player from the country so far is all-rounder Deepti Sharma, who was bought by UP Warriors for Rs 2.6 crore. The hard-hitting Shafali Verma and star of the World T20 game against Pakistan on Sunday, Jemimah Rodrigues were picked up by Delhi Capitals for Rs 2 crore and Rs 2.20 crore respectively.
With PTI inputs