WPL 2023 Auction: In the opening rounds of the Mumbai auction, four elite skippers remained unsold.
Smriti Mandhana of India was the first player to go under the hammer in the historic Women’s Premier League 2023 auction, which saw some major winners early on. However, several of the participating franchises’ decisions to reject bids from prominent international captains were perplexing.
Harmanpreet Kaur, the Indian team’s captain, was signed by the Mumbai Indians for a respectable INR 1.80 crore, but hard-hitting Windies all-rounder Hayley Matthews failed to find a suitor during the auction. Given Matthews’ achievements at the highest level of the game, the choice was unexpected. The 24-year-old has 74 wickets and nearly 1500 runs in T20Is to her credit.
The franchisees also passed over England’s Heather Knight after the Windies captain. With almost a century of T20I appearances and over 1500 runs, the seasoned cricketer who captains the English squad at the international level is one of the most experienced players in the sport.
Sune Luus, the captain of South Africa, joined Knight on the list of players who went unpurchased in the auction. The Proteas all-rounder, one of the most sought-after players in the game’s shortest format, has played in 97 T20 Internationals and has amassed over a thousand runs and 49 wickets.
Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu, the fourth and final international captain to go unsold in the first round of the auction, was undoubtedly the most unexpected choice. The top-order batsman for Sri Lanka was instrumental in her team’s decisive triumph over the South African hosts in the Women’s T20 World Cup campaign opener earlier this month.
Although none of the four elite skippers was purchased in the first round of the auction, there are still plenty of spaces available for all of the participating teams, so it is possible that they will be purchased in the second round.
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