In this city of dreams, some will be fulfilled and many shattered on Saturday.
The auction for Season 2 of the Women’s Premier League kicks off at 3 p.m. at Grand Hyatt. Players from around the world will be following it keenly. It is their big chance.
30 slots
Only 30 slots in all — including nine foreigners — are available, from a list of 165, for the five teams.
It may only be a mini auction, but for teams like Gujarat Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore, it is a mega opportunity to get their combinations right after the disappointment in the inaugural WPL.
After releasing 11 of its players, the Giants has the biggest purse (₹5.95 crore), followed by UP Warriorz (4 crore), RCB (3.35 crore), Delhi Capitals (2.25 crore) and Mumbai Indians (2.1 crore). An additional ₹1.5 crore has been made available to each of them.
MI and DC, the champion and the runner-up, needn’t get as excited as the others, having kept most of their main players. They would be keen to build on their settled squads, with an eye on the future, while also looking for a steal or two (UP Warriorz had got Alyssa Healy for ₹70 lakh last year).
The Aussie superstar going for such a low price wasn’t the only surprise, though. Chamari Athapaththu and Danni Wyatt, both game-changing batters, found no buyers, but this time around, paddles should go up when their names are announced by the auctioneer Mallika Sagar.
Wyatt is very much in the city, and is very much in form, too. She had scored a 47-ball 75 for England in its 38-run victory against India in the first T20I at the Wankhede on Wednesday.
As for Athapaththu, she has been in the form of her life, and was the best player at the recently concluded Women’s Big Bash League in Australia.
Evoking interest
More Australian women, like Kim Garth, Annabel Sutherland and Amanda-Jade Wellington, too could evoke interest. So would West Indian Deandra Dottin, who was released ahead of the league by Giants in strange circumstances, and South African Shabnim Ismail.
There are, of course, far more Indians in the fray, including Devika Vaidya, S. Meghana, Meghna Singh and Sushma Verma, among the capped players, and Mannat Kashyap and Uma Chetry among the uncapped. Then there are also cricketers from the associate nations, like Sarah Bryce and Tara Norris, who was one of the stories of the first WPL.
