The Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 has so far been a great hit, with its media rights being sold for a whopping amount of Rs 951 crore and bagging of team’s ownership for a record Rs 4669.99 crores. Now, next on the card is the WPL 2023 players’ auction which will see the participation of women cricketers from across the world.
The auction for the much-awaited inaugural edition of WPL 2023 will take place in Mumbai next week i.e. on Monday (February 13), with five teams bidding for the registered players.
Notably, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Delhi and Bangalore are the franchises that would be seen adding players to their teams in the auction. A total of 90 players will be sold during the bidding event, and each team is restricted with the purse limit of INR 12 crore.
Each franchise can add a minimum of 15 players and a maximum of 18 players to their team, with seven overseas players (including one from an associate nation). Teams would also be able to have five foreign players in their starting eleven, provided that one is from an associate nation.
The WPL 2023 is likely to begin in first week of March, following the conclusion of the 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa.
Talking about the WPL 2023 players’ auction, New Zealand skipper Sophie Devine at the T20 World Cup captains’ press conference, expressed her excitement for the maiden Indian league and also spoke about its impact on players.
“It’s a really unique experience. It’s enormous. You talk about glass ceilings and I think the WPL is going to be the next stage. I am really excited about it. As female cricketers, this is something we have never been through before. On every scale, it’s going to be awkward. That’s the word we have spoken about,” said Devine.
“And you are going to get a value attached to what you are worth which, as human beings, is not the nicest [thing], to be perfectly honest. But it’s also a job and it’s what we’ve put our names in for,” she added.
When asked if the upcoming WPL auction would be a distraction for players competing in the T20 world cup, Devine said: “naive to think that it’s not going to be a distraction.”
