On Sunday, the IPL 2022 auction was completed in Bangalore. Over the course of the two-day auction, 204 players in total were bought by the franchises. Ishan Kishan was the most expensive player, with the Mumbai Indians paying Rs 15.25 crore for him. Punjab Kings paid Rs 11.50 crore for Liam Livingstone, making him the most expensive overseas purchase.
Meanwhile, England Women’s cricketer Kate Cross has shared her thoughts on which franchise has the strongest squad after the mega-auctions. Using England Cricket’s twitter handle, Kate conducted a QnA for fans where she was asked to opine on the current strongest IPL side following the auctions. “Has to be @ChennaiIPL”, she replied.
Has to be @ChennaiIPL 💛 https://t.co/hQKCFOoao1
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) February 13, 2022
CSK squad: MS Dhoni (c), Ravindra Jadeja, Moeen Ali, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ambati Rayudu, Robin Uthappa, Deepak Chahar, N Jagadeesan, C Hari Nishaanth, Subhranshu Senapati, KM Asif, Mukesh Choudhary, Maheesh Theekshana, Simarjeet Singh, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Bhagath Varma, Prashant Solanki, Chris Jordan, Dwaine Pretorius, Devon Conway, Adam Milne, Mitchell Santner, Dwayne Bravo, Shivam Dube, Tushar Deshpande
Full-fledged Women’s IPL?
In a video uploaded on Ravichandran Ashwin’s Youtube channel some time back, Kate had showed interest in playing for the Chennai Super Kings whenever a Women’s IPL is started. The Women’s T20 Challenge, which features three teams, has been held every year alongside the men’s IPL event since 2018. However fans now, are eagerly waiting for a full women’s IPL season.
Can’t wait for the day there is a women’s one of these! #IPLAuction pic.twitter.com/OTPF0Vqoik
— Kate Cross (@katecross16) February 13, 2022
BCCI President Sourav Ganguly has recently confirmed that a full-fledged Women’s IPL is in planning stage and there are great chances that it will start in 2023. Ganguly added that the BCCI wants it to be as popular as the men’s IPL.
“We are at the level of formulation to have a full-fledged WIPL. It is certainly going to happen. I strongly believe that next year i.e. 2023 will be a very good time to start a full-fledged women’s IPL which will be as big and grand a success as men’s IPL.”, Ganguly said.