The much-awaited Women's Premier League (WPL) 2023 Auction is taking place on Monday, February 13, in Mumbai. A total of 409 players are going under the hammer with 246 Indians and 163 overseas players will be making the cut. India's U-19 World Cup-winning skipper Shafali Verma joined Delhi after getting 2 crores. Shafali Verma recently won the T20 World Cup as captain of the Indian Under-19 women's team. The 19-year-old has played 51 T20Is for India and scored 1231 runs at an average of 24.62 with strike rate of 134.53. Shafali is at number 8 in the T20I rankings for women batters.
The five teams -- Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, RCB, Gujarat Giants and UP Warriorz -- are bidding. With a salary purse of Rs 12 crore per team for the first year and a squad size of 18 including six overseas players, at least 20 to 25 of the 60 Indian women set to be picked will command good auction price. The base prices are set in five brackets with the least being Rs 10 lakh and the highest Rs 50 lakh. The other brackets are Rs 20, 30 and 40 lakh, respectively.
Earlier, the U19 Women's Team recently became the World Champions by emerging victorious in the inaugural season of the Women's U-19 T20 World Cup in South Africa. The team led-by Shafali Verma beat England in the finals by 7 wickets to hand India their first world title in women's cricket. Soon after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced a sum of INR 5 crore for the winning team.
The skipper of the team that lifted the trophy also collected the INR 5 Crore cheque, a prize which the Board had announced for the team and the support staff post India's dominant victory in the summit clash.