Women's IPL auction 2023 highlights: How the five teams look like after inaugural WPL

That is all the updates that we have from the WPL auction. Thanks for being along with us. Good bye. 

Former Australian cricketer turned commentator Lisa Sthalekar believes that UP Warriorz's squad is a good blend of youth and experience. 

Smriti Mandhana is the highest paid player in both the WPL and TheHundred.Her WPL salary is over 10 times what she gets in The Hundred .

Following are the team-wise list of players at the end of the Women's Premier League (WPL) auction on Monday.

DELHI CAPITALS: Jemimah Rodrigues Rs 2.20 crore Shafali Verma Rs 2.00 crore Marizanne Kapp Rs 1.50 crore Meg Lanning Rs 1.10 crore Alice Capsey Rs 75 lakh Shikha Pandey Rs 60 lakh Jess Jonassen Rs 50 lakh Laura Harris Rs 45 lakh Radha Yadav Rs 40 lakh Arundhati Reddy Rs 30 lakh Minnu Mani Rs Rs 30 lakh Poonam Yadav Rs 30 lakh Sneha Deepthi Rs 30 lakh Taniyaa Bhatia Rs 30 lakh Titas Sadhu Rs 25 lakh Jasia Akhter Rs 20 lakh Aparna Mondal Rs 10 lakh Tara Norris Rs 10 lakh

GUJARAT GIANTS: Ashleigh Gardner Rs 3.20 crore Beth Mooney Rs 2 crore Georgia Wareham Rs 75 lakh Sneh Rana Rs 75 lakh Annabel Sutherland Rs 70 lakh Deandra Dottin Rs 60 lakh Sophia Dunkley Rs 60 lakh Sushma Verma Rs 60 lakh Tanuja Kanwer Rs 50 lakh Harleen Deol Rs 40 lakh Ashwani Kumari Rs 35 lakh Dayalan Hemalatha Rs 30 lakh Mansi Joshi Rs 30 lakh Monica Patel Rs 30 lakh Sabbineni Meghana Rs 30 lakh Hurley Gala Rs 10 lakh Parunika Sisodia Rs 10 lakh Shabam Shakil Rs 10 lakh

MUMBAI INDIANS: Natalie Sciver Rs 3.2 crore Pooja Vastrakar Rs 1.90 crore Harmanpreet Kaur Rs 1.80 crore Yastika Bhatia Rs 1.50 crore Amelia Kerr Rs 1 crore Amanjot Kaur RS 50 lakh Hayley Matthews Rs 40 lakh Chloe Tryon Rs 30 lakh Heather Graham Rs 30 lakh Isabelle Wong Rs 30 lakh Priyanka Bala Rs 20 lakh Dhara Gujjar Rs 10 lakh Humairaa Kaazi Rs 10 lakh Jintimani Kalita Rs 10 lakh Neelam Bisht Rs 10 lakh Saika Ishaque Rs 10 lakh Sonam Yadav Rs 10 lakh

ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE: Smriti Mandhana Rs 3.40 crore Richa Ghosh Rs 1.90 crore Ellyse Perry Rs 1.70 crore Renuka Singh Rs 1.50 crore Sophie Devine Rs 50 lakh Heather Knight Rs 40 lakh Megan Schutt Rs 40 lakh Kanika Ahuja Rs 35 lakh Dané Van Niekerk Rs 30 lakh Erin Burns Rs 30 lakh Preeti Bose Rs 30 lakh Komal Zanzad Rs 25 lakh Asha Shobana Ra 10 lakh Disha Kasat Rs 10 lakh Indrani Roy Rs 10 lakh Poonam Khemnar Rs 10 lakh Sahana Pawar Rs 10 lakh Shreyanka Patil Rs 10 lakh

UP WARRIORZ: Deepti Sharma Rs 2.60 crore Sophie Ecclestone Rs 1.80 crore Devika Vaidya Rs 1.40 crore Tahlia Mcgrath Rs 1.40 crore Shabnim Ismail Rs 1 crore Grace Harris Rs 75 lakh Alyssa Healy Rs 70 lakh Anjali Sarvani Rs 55 lakh Rajeshwari Gayakwad Rs 40 lakh Shweta Sehrawat Rs 40 lakh Kiran Navgire Rs 30 lakh Lauren Bell Rs 30 lakh Laxmi Yadav Rs 10 lakh Parshavi Chopra Rs 10 lakh S. Yashasri Rs 10 lakh Simran Shaikh Rs 10 lakh. 

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These seven cricketers will earn more from the WPL than what Pakistan captain Babar Azam earns from Pakistan Super League. 

1. Smriti Mandhana 3.4 Crore (RCB)
2. Deepti Sharma 2.6 Crore (UPW)
3. Jemimah Rodrigues 2.2 Crore (DC)
4. Shafali Verma 2 Crore (DC)
5. Richa Ghosh 1.9 Crore (RCB)
6. Pooja Vastrakar 1.9 Crore (MI)
7. Harmanpreet Kaur 1.8 Crore (MI)

What Babar Azam earns playing in PSL

Babar Azam 1.2 Crore (PSL)

Interesting observation: 

For IPL 2023 mini-auction, from the English brother duo of Sam Curran and Tom Curran, Sam was the most expensive overseas player, while Tom went usold. 

For the WPL 2023 auction, from the English pair of Nat Sciver-Brunt and Kathrine Sciver-Brunt, Nat is the most expensive overseas player. but her partner, Kathrine remains unsold. 

Here is the amount of money left in the purses of the respective teams after the final player was sold in the first-ever WPL. 

Mumbai Indians and UP Warriorz have exhausted their pursues, Gujarat Giants, Delhi Capitals and Royal Challengers Bangalore are left with Rs 50 lakhs, Rs 35 lakhs and Rs 10 lakhs respectively. 

Some big names went unsold in the WPL auction. Here is a look at the players who registered for the WPL auction but no team showed interest in them. 

Dani Wyatt, Kathrine Sciver-Brunt, Meghana Singh, Amy Jones, Alana Kings, Salma Khatun, Priya Punia, Charlie Dean, Suzie Bates, Kate Cross, Laura Wolvaardt, Chamari Athapaththu, Sune Luus, Ekta Bisht, Anuja Patil and Sarah Glenn 

English cricketer Danielle Wyatt had high hopes from the Women's Premier League auction. But none of the five teams bought her and Wyatt has gone unsold. IT has left the cricketer heartbroken.

Women's cricket set to turn new corner with WPL

India women's cricket team vice-captain Smriti Mandhana becoming ecstatic after being picked by Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 3.4 crore during the Women's Premier League (WPL) auction was a moment that exemplified the excitement among players for the big day.

After all, the women were seeing the occasion as the beginning of a new dawn where they would also be able be to call themselves millionaires like their male counterparts in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

For long, there had been talk about a T20 league for women in India, with several veterans like Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami and Harmanpreet Kaur, among others, waiting for this seminal moment in country's cricketing landscape.

But all that will change on March 4 this year when the inaugural match of the five-franchise tournament begins.

While it will most likely continue to be the precursor to the 'big event', the IPL, women cricketers will finally have a niche window, which they will be able to call their own in a milieu overcrowded with men's T20 leagues.

While in terms of money and clout, the WPL and IPL, will never be comparable, the new baby of Indian cricket will at least add a lot of glamour to women's cricket, which was so far lacking, and also bring in hordes of fresh Indian and foreign faces, hoping to make big bucks through WPL.

As India women cricketer set foot into hitherto uncharted territory, it would be fair to say the auction has gone way beyond expectation for several of them if one compares it with the IPL.

Mandhana getting Rs 3.40 crore, spinner Deepti Sharma being bought by UP Warriorz for Rs 2.60 crore and Jemimah Rodrigues and young India opener Shafali Verma earning Rs 2 crore-plus deals, certainly bodes well for the women cricketer in the country, given that the salary cap for each of the five franchises was just Rs 12 crore compared to the IPL mega auction last year where the total budget per franchise was increased from Rs 90 crore to Rs 95 crore.

Comparing the inaugural WPL auction to the first IPL auction ahead of the 2008 season, there is just a three-fold difference between what CSK dished out for Mahandra Singh Dhoni (Rs 9.5 crore) and what Mandhana got on Monday.

In fact, during the 2010 IPL auction Shane Bond (KKR) and Kieron Pollard (MI) were the highest money earners at Rs 4.8 crore each. It was only in 2011, that the salary purse of franchises started getting bigger and Gautam Gambhir (KKR) broke bank to earn a mind-boggling 14.9 crore.

Over the years, IPL has become the biggest and best domestic T20 tournament in the world, thanks to the multi-fold increase in telecast, broadcast and online revenue, which has translated into huge monetary gains for the players as well.

Ravindra Jadeja got Rs 12.8 crore in 2012, RCB shelling out Rs 14 crore for Yuvraj Singh and Delhi Daredevils (Delhi Capitals) buying him for a then IPL auction record of Rs 16 crore, were the offshoot of the burgeoning salary purse of the franchises.

The upward trend has continued with England all-rounder Sam Curran now the highest ever money-earner from the 2023 IPL auction at Rs 18.5 crore.

When compared to the mega-bucks being earned by male cricketers, Mandhana's Rs three crore-plus pay packet certainly pales in front of these celebrated IPL icons.

But, come to think of it, the inaugural IPL auction too had a "humble" start and gradually, over the years, more money started flowing into the environment.

As the WPL brand takes baby steps towards creating a niche for itself, it's just a matter of time before more TV money gets pumped into the league and the salary caps of franchises are revised.

Ten years down the line, who knows, a new woman cricketer could be laughing her way to the bank with a Rs 20-plus crore purse. IPL would be touching astronomical figures.

While not getting into the debate of who gets what, women's cricket was certainly the winner on Monday and with WPL, it'll turn a new corner.

Aussies were the most sought-after cricketers from overseas in the auction. Here is a look at the all Australian cricketers who were bought in the auction. 

Here is what legends Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, both of whom are now part of Mumbai Indians for the Women's Premier League (WPL), had to say after the auction. 

Following are the team-wise list of players at the end of the Women's Premier League (WPL) auction 

Following are the team-wise list of players at the end of the Women's Premier League (WPL) auction 

Following are the team-wise list of players at the end of the Women's Premier League (WPL) auction