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The Times of India

Sport

Rajesh Pansare | TNN

WPL Auction: Smriti Mandhana tops money chart as RCB pips Mumbai Indians

Smriti Mandhana RCB Mumbai Indians WPL Harmanpreet Kaur India Shafali Verma Mumbai Deepti Sharma Jemimah Rodrigues

High bidding sees ten Indians earn crore-plus deals

MUMBAI: Smriti Mandhana had to sit out of India's thrilling win over Pakistan in their Women's T20 World Cup opener because of an injury but her mood must have surely lifted on Monday when she emerged as the top pick in the inaugural Women's Premier League (WPL) auction held in Mumbai.

AS IT HAPPENED: WPL PLAYER AUCTION

The India vice-captain was bought for Rs 3.4 crore by Royal Challengers Bangalore after a fierce battle with Mumbai Indians. All 15 Indian players in the World Cup squad were sold with 10 of them crossing the Rs 1 crore-mark.

1/10:WPL Auction: When Smriti Mandhana stole the thunder outside a stadium
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Australia allrounder Ashleigh Gardner and England's Nat Sciver-Brunt received the joint second-highest bids at Rs 3.2 crore; bought by Gujarat Giants and Mumbai Indians respectively.

Allrounder Deepti Sharma received the second highest bid for an Indian player with UP Warriorz buying her for Rs 2.6 crore. She was followed by Jemimah Rodrigues (Rs 2.2cr to DC), Shafali Verma (Rs 2cr to DC), Richa Ghosh (Rs 1.9cr to RCB), Pooja Vastrakar (Rs 1.9cr to MI), Harmanpreet Kaur (Rs 1.8cr to MI), Yastika Bhatia (Rs 1.5cr to MI), Renuka Thakur (Rs 1.5cr to RCB) and Devika Vaidya (Rs 1.4cr to UP). Of the top 10 overall buys, six were Indians.

Second player up for grabs was India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur with Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, RCB and Warriorz bidding for her at different stages but it stopped at Rs 1.8 crore in favour of MI. It was expected that Harmanpreet would fetch similar, if not a higher, bid compared to Mandhana but such are the auction dynamics that in the end she was slotted in seventh place among the top Indian buys.

With the league put together in a short time, the franchises decided to bring known players on board and it led to aggressive bidding in the first part of the auction.

RCB were the early aggressors and they benefited from it by landing three of the first five players sold. Besides Mandhana, they bought New Zealand allrounder Sophie Devine for her base price of Rs 50 lakh and Australian allrounder Ellyse Perry for Rs 1.7 crore.

RCB director of cricket Mike Hesson was happy with the outcome in the early stages. "We are very happy to such quality players in the first group. It was a dream result for us," said the New Zealander.

DC, who bid for Harmanpreet, Perry, Sophie Ecclestone and Sharma in the opening exchanges didn't panic when they failed to land their target. But that did help them in the end when their first two buys were the future of Indian cricket — Rodrigues and Verma. They were followed by Australian skipper Meg Lanning for just Rs 1.1 crore which can be considered a steal.

"The way we approach an auction, we have a celling price for each player. if a player is above that, we have to pull out. We felt that some of our players went over our estimation of what their value was," said DC owner Parth Jindal.

Gujarat Giants mentor Mithali Raj said: "For some it's been a disappointment. For some , it's a very good picks. Some have gone for higher bids and some lower than expected. But that's what this auction is about. You are pretty much betting and guessing. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don't," said the former India skipper.

MI went hard as well in the opening exchanges but couldn't land Mandhana or Gardner but they didget Schiver-Brunt, Harmanpreet, Vastrakar and New Zealand's Amelia Kerr. MI mentor Jhulan Goswami was happy with the squad they managed to put together in the end.

"That is how auctions are. You have to have Plan B, Plan C as well as you don't know what you are going to get. Whatever we executed today, we are happy and excited. We have a good mixture of overseas and Indian players," she said.

Among the players who could have fetched more were Australian Perry, Lanning, wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy, who can be considered as a steal for Warriorz at just Rs 70 lakh.

Nine players, including Verma and Ghosh, from the Women's Under-19 T20 World Cup team were picked during the auction.