The inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2023 auction will take place on Monday (February 13) and that may not exactly be an all-woman affair but as per reports, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has asked for a female auctioneer.
According to WPL 2023 Player Auction Rules, as per the communication 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) as well.
It is also noteworthy that, Hugh Edmeades, Richard Madley and Charu Sharma have conducted IPL auctions, in the past or recently. The BCCI has also informed the teams that each of them needs to have at least 15 players and the minimum squad spend should be INR 9 crore as well. The value of the full purse is INR 12 crore and each side is allowed to acquire only six foreign players in their team as well.
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).”
However, a total of 409 players will go under the hammer with 246 of them being Indian players and 163 overseas players as well. Out of which eight players are from the associate nations too. The players will be presented in sets on the basis of specialism – marquee players, batters, allrounders, wicketkeepers, fast bowlers, spin bowlers and emerging players as well.
The players in the auction register have five different categories 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 placed 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 whereas thirty players have enrolled with INR 40 lakh as their base price in the WPL auction as well.
The bidding increments of WPL 2023 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
However, the BCCI will also give strategy breaks every hour during the auction. Each break will be of 10-minute duration for the franchises to review their strategy as well.
“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 further shared.
However, the WPL 2023 auction will take place in the Jasmine Hall, 1, JIO World Convention Centre, starting at 2.30 PM. The BCCI will hold a pre-auction briefing for all the franchises at 8 pm on Sunday (February 12) as well.
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