The maiden Women’s Premier League (WPL 2023) auction grabbed millions of eyeballs from India and across the world as the biggest, richest women’s T20 league is about commence in less than a month’s time.
87 players – 57 Indians and 30 overseas – were sold in the WPL auction 2023.
Smriti Mandhana, the India opener and vice-captain, bagged the loftiest WPL contract, worth INR 3.4 crore, from RCB, followed by Nat Sciver (Mumbai Indians) and Ash Gardner (Gujarat Giants), worth INR 3.2 crore each.
Among the sold players, there were also some who the franchises got at a bargained price and would have been really happy to some marquee, world-class players at steal amounts.
Here are 3 biggest steals of the WPL auction 2023:
Harmanpreet Kaur – INR 1.8 crore (MI)
While Mandhana went for INR 3.4 crore, Mumbai Indians bagged the services of the Indian captain, Harmanpreet Kaur, for almost half the price of Mandhana, which also MI had contemplated paying but then pulled off.
After Harman, plenty of Indian players – Deepti, Jemimah, Richa, Shafali, Vastrakar – went for a price higher than Harman’s. This would make MI’s decision of pulling off from Mandhana’s bid even more vindicated.
33-year-old, who is set to captain MI in the WPL 2023, is the most experienced player in the Indian team currently with 147 T20Is and 124 ODIs under her belt. She is a middle-order blockbuster power-hitter who has hit 1 T20I century and 9 fifties. Harman also bowls part-time off-spin as fillers.
Sophie Devine- INR 50 Lakh (RCB)
There are few more experience, and bigger match-winners than Sophie Devine in the women’s game. The 33-year-old New Zealand captain has featured in 134 ODIs and 117 T20Is in her illustrious career.
A right-handed top-order batter and a medium pacer, Devine has amassed close to 3000 T20I runs and snared 110 wickets in the shortest format so far.
She is ranked 5th in ICC T20I all-rounder’s rankings; the four players ahead of her in that ranking are all spinning all-rounders.
So the fact that RCB acquired Sophie Devine for only INR 50 lakh is perhaps the biggest steal of the WPL auction 2023.
Alyssa Healy – INR 70 Lakh (UP)
There perhaps doesn’t come a more clutch performer in international cricket in recent years than Alyssa Healy. A significant part of Australia’s world-renowned golden generation, Healy was the Player of the Match in the final of the 2020 T20 World Cup and in the final of the 2022 ODI World Cup and also the Player of the Series in the latter.
She has played in 138 T20Is and 94 ODIs, winning several accolades and trophies. Healy has cracked 13 fifties and 1 hundred in T20Is.
To get the wicket-keeper opener, who is hailed as one of the dangerous batter going around, for INR 70 lakh, the UP Warriorz certainly made a massive steal. Healy comes with a big-match pedigree; in the inaugural WPL 2023 tournament, while even the home players might be anxious and feel jitters, UP can bank on Healy to step up in the important games.
