The inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL) auction on Monday (February 13) may not exactly be an all-woman affair but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has opted for a female auctioneer. According to WPL 2023 Player Auction Rules, communicated to the five WPL franchises, the BCCI said, Malika Advani, a Mumbai based art collector consultant for Modern and Contemporary Indian art and partner in Art India Consultants firm, will oversee the auction on Monday (February 13).
Hugh Edmeades, Richard Madley or Charu Sharma have conducted the IPL auctions, in the past or recently.
The BCCI has also informed the teams that each of them is needed to have at least 15 players and the minimum squad spend should be INR 9 crore. The value of the full purse is INR 12 crore and each side is allowed to buy only six foreign players.
Says the BCCI communication, “The franchisees are reminded of the WPL squad rules with respect to minimum (15) and maximum (18) squad size, minimum squad spend (INR 9 crore) and the maximum number of overseas players in the squad (6).”
A total of 409 players will go under the hammer with 246 of them being Indians and 163 overseas players, of which eight players are from the associate nations. The players will be presented in sets on the basis of specialism – marquee players, batters, allrounders, wicketkeepers, fast bowlers, spin bowlers and emerging players.
The players in the auction register have five different slabs of base prices – INR 50 lakh, INR 40 lakh, INR 30 lakh, INR 20 lakh and INR 10 lakh, with 24 players choosing to be slotted in the top bracket. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma, Ellyse Perry, Sophie Ecclestone, Sophie Devine and Deandra Dottin are among the players with the highest base price. Thirty players have enrolled with INR 40 lakh as their base price.
The bidding increments will be as follows:
– bids up to INR 1 crore: increments of INR 5 lakh
– bids from INR 1 crore to INR 2 crore: increments of INR 10 lakh
– bids from INR 2 crore to INR 3 crore: increments of INR 20 lakh
– bids from INR 3 crore: increments at the auctioneer’s discretion, but not less than INR 20 lakh
The BCCI is also providing strategy breaks every hour during the auction. Each break will be of 10-minute duration for the franchises to review their tactics in regular intervals.
“Following the conclusion of each set, there may (at the Auctioneer’s discretion) be a short break to allow franchises time to re-evaluate tactics. The length of each break will be announced by the Auctioneer at the conclusion of the relevant set. A warning bell will ring two minutes before the resumption of the Player Auction after each break. The Player Auction will re-start promptly after each break. It is anticipated that these short breaks will total a minimum of 10 minutes in every hour of the Player Auction proceedings,” the BCCI note says.
The auction will take place in the Jasmine Hall, 1, JIO World Convention Centre, and it will start at 2.30 PM. The BCCI will hold a pre-auction briefing for the franchises at 8 pm on Sunday (February 12).
