WPL: Uncapped flavour at a jaded auction

Bengaluru: Try as they did, the Women’s Premier League auction organisers couldn’t inject life into an event that was eventually nothing more than a futile exercise in false hype.  

There was never any reason to believe the 2025 auction would be more engrossing than it could be because only 19 slots needed to be filled between five teams. 

But, the extravagant nature of the set-up in the City, the solemnness with which every franchise representative observed the proceedings, and the owners who were in presence, allowed for an element of disillusionment.

Once the proceedings started, though, there was no doubt that this auction would be a drab one, save for the ones who walked away with money in their bank. And, the biggest gainers on the day, interestingly enough, were uncapped Indians. 

Mumbai all-rounder Simran Shaikh was picked up by the Gujarat Giants for Rs 1.9 crore, Tamil Nadu’s G Kamalini was bought by Mumbai Indians for Rs 1.6 crore and Royal Challengers Bengaluru put out Rs 1.2 crore for Uttarakhand’s Prema Rawat.

RCB, in particular, were after the uncapped folk for all of their four purchases -- Prema, Joshitha JV, Raghvi Bist and Jagravi Pawar -- fell in that category. 

Prema Rawat. 

And, much like their male counterparts, RCB steered clear of local talent. No surprises there; but it was rather peculiar to see the likes of Sheh Rana, Sushma Verma and Poonam Yadav, although capped, go unsold.

On the international front too there were some surprises when Australian Heather Graham or Milly Illingworth and Ireland Orla Prendergast didn’t get any attention from the paddle. 

At the other end of the spectrum, Deandra Dottin would’ve enjoyed the validation when Gujarat and UP Warriorz went on a full-throttle paddle war to acquire the West Indian’s services. With her base price set at Rs 50 lakhs, it was only natural that these two teams would go for her for they had a bag of Rs 4.4 crore and Rs 3.9 crore, respectively. 

G Kamalini. 

If this start gave the illusion that this auction would be fun, the following 18 unsold players, dissipated any energy gathered at the start. To make matters even more ambiguous, off-putting even, some of the more established names slipped into the ‘unsold’ category. 

Some did return for two rounds of accelerated auctions to get picked up, key examples being the current Under-19 India captain Niki Prasad and Alana King. But, most others remained destined to the most depressing of labels. Just like this auction itself: jaded. 

Team-wise purchases (Indians unless mentioned otherwise):

Delhi Capitals: N Charani, Nandini Kashyap, Sarah Bryce (Scotland), Niki Prasad. 

Gujarat Giants: Simran Shaikh, Deandra Dottin (WI), Danielle Gibson (Eng), Prakashika Naik. 

Mumbai Indians: G Kamalini, Nadine de Klerk (SA), Akshita Maheshwari, Sanskriti Gupta.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Prema Rawat, Joshitha JV, Raghvi Bist, Jagravi Pawar (all uncapped). 

UP Warriorz: Alana King (Aus), Arushi Goel, Kranti Goud.