NEW DELHI: Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and teen sensation Shafali Verma will be the most sought after Indian players and are expected to trigger bidding wars when they go under the hammer during the inaugural Women's Premier League (WPL) auction in Mumbai on Monday.
The five teams -- Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, RCB, Gujarat Giants and UP Warriorz -- will be bidding for 90 players in a list of 409.
There will be a salary purse of Rs 12 crore per team for the first year and a squad size of 18 including six overseas players. And out of the 60 Indian women at least 20 to 25 are set to be picked and will command a good price at the auction.
Alyssa Healy, Beth Mooney, Elysse Perry, Nat Sciver, Megan Schutt and Deandra Dottin are some of the big names among the overseas players who are expected to enjoy a big pay day.
All the five franchises will certainly go big for the current team players of India, Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa at the auction.
If some officials associated with the franchises are to be believed, prolific batters Smriti, Shafali, Harmanpreet and all-rounder Deepti Sharma are set to earn anywhere between Rs 1.25 to 2 crore from teams that successfully bid for them.
Big hitter Richa Ghosh and seamer Renuka Thakur will also invoke a lot of interest from potential bidders. So will the spinners like Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Radha Yadav, and seamers Meghana Singh and Shikha Pandey.
Jemimah Rodrigues, who has had a good run in foreign T20 leagues, could also be a big earner during the auction.
In the uncapped Indian players' category, Kashmir's Jasia Akhtar and Railways' Swagatika Rath are some of the prominent names expected to get richer by the end of the auction.
Among the U-19 World Cup-winning women's team, batter Shweta Sehrawat, spinners Parshavi Chopra, Mannat Kashyap and Archana Devi along with seamer Titas Sadhu are expected to attract good bids.
The five franchises will look at potential captains and, apart from Smriti and Harman, some of the other likely captaincy candidates are legendary Southern Stars boss Meg Lanning, England skipper Heather Knight and White Ferns leader Sophie Devine, all of whom have put their names in the list.
Speaking ahead of the historic day for Indian cricket, Delhi Capitals head coach Jonathan Batty said, "We are very excited about the WPL auction. We have worked on our strategy for the auction. We have a lot of people in the Delhi Capitals staff, who have worked on numerous IPL auctions. We are using their knowledge."
Key Figures of Auction
Maximum Overseas players/squad: 6
