The long-awaited turning point for Indian women’s cricket has finally arrived with the auction for the inaugural Women’s Premier League taking place on Monday, February 13. Along with Aakash Chopra and Abhinav Mukund, England great Lydia Greenway and India’s Veda Krishnamurthy will serve on the expert panel for Viacom18’s auction coverage on Sports18 – 1 SD & HD and Jio Cinema.
Intriguingly, Veda Krishnamurthy herself is one of the 409 auction participants. In the WPL auction preview programme that is now available on JioCinema, she was all grins when host Anant Tyagi inquired about her selection chances.
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“I am quite elated. My Karnataka teammates believe I’m insane for performing a show while my name is up for auction. However, I have accepted this in stride. I do not know if it will occur or not, but I am quite delighted,” said the 30-year-old India hitter.
The top international women’s cricket players will be selected by the five franchises, who will each have a budget of Rs 12 crore to create rosters of 15 to 18 players.
While Alyssa Healy, Ellyse Perry, Meg Lanning, Sophie Devine, and Sophie Ecclestone will be in high demand, Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur will be keenly monitored.
“The first person any franchise will earmark is their captain, given the great role of the captain in T20 cricket, and it’s noteworthy to note that you can’t designate just one player. You may want Smriti, Harmanpreet, or Dipti (Sharma) as your captain, but if another franchise successfully bids for them, you may not have that option,” Chopra explained.
But the reconnaissance has already been conducted. Bangalore had been searching for players for four months. Mithali (Raj) is on one team, while Jhulan (Goswami) is on the other. Clearly, a lot of brainpower is being invested in assembling a strong team,” he continued. “The 12-million-dollar prize pool will force teams to consider how much they would like to spend on its captain. Therefore, it will be fascinating to observe,” said Veda Krishnamurthy.
“The key is to be really flexible if a franchise decides to overpay for a few of players that other teams may have pegged as captains.” This is why auctions are so interesting to observe,” Chopra explained.
Speaking about Mandhana, an opener that teams will be prepared to spend a fortune on, Veda Krishnamurthy said, “She is an opener, she can take the game away, and she is captaincy material, so regardless of which team she joins, she will lead that group. She offers a great deal of experience and several runs to the franchisee. She is young, thus she will remain with the franchise for an extended period of time. This is something that all franchises should be aware of.”
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