The 12-crore purse will make teams think about how much would they like to spend on their captain: Veda Krishnamurthy

The turning point for which Indian women’s cricket has long waited for has finally arrived with the auction for the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League taking place on Monday, February 13. England legend Lydia Greenway and India’s Veda Krishnamurthy will form Viacom18’s expert panel alongside Aakash Chopra and Abhinav Mukund, bringing fans comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the auction on Sports18 – 1 SD & HD and JioCinema. 

Interestingly, Krishnamurthy herself is part of the 409-player auction pool. She was all smiles when asked about her selection prospects by host Anant Tyagi in the WPL auction preview show that is now available on JioCinema.  

Watch Here: WPL Auction Live Updates

“I am very excited. My Karnataka teammates feel I am crazy doing a show when my name is in the auction. But that’s something I have taken in my stride. Whether it will happen or not is something I don’t know, but I am really excited,” said the 30-year-old India batter. 

The cream of international women’s cricket will be chosen by the five franchises who will have to assemble squads ranging from 15 to 18 players from a purse of Rs 12 crore each. 

While the likes of overseas stars Alyssa Healy, Ellyse Perry, Meg Lanning, Sophie Devine and Sophie Ecclestone will be in great demand, the fortunes of Indian stalwarts Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur will be tracked closely. 

“The first player any of the franchises will earmark is their captain since the value of the captain is immense in T20 cricket and the interesting thing is you can’t earmark only one player. You may want Smriti or Harmanpreet or Dipti (Sharma) as your captain, but you may not have that option if another franchise bids successfully for them,” explained Chopra.  

“But the scouting has already been done. Bangalore were looking at players for the past four months. Mithali (Raj) with one team, Jhulan (Goswami) with another team. Obviously, there is a lot of brain trust going on to assemble a good team,” he added. “The 12-crore purse will make teams think about how much would they like to spend on their captain. So that will be interesting to watch,” said Krishnamurthy. 

“The trick will be to be really fluid if any particular franchise decides to break the bank for a couple of players who other teams may have earmarked as their captains. That’s why auctions are so exciting to watch,” said Chopra. 

Speaking about opener Mandhana, who franchises will be willing to spend a fortune on, Krishnamurthy said: “She is an opener, she can take the game away, she is also captaincy material, so obviously whichever team she will go to she's going to lead that squad. She brings a lot of experience and a lot of runs to that franchisee. She is young so that means she will be with that franchise for a long time. That is something all franchises would be watching out for.” 

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