BCCI Rope in Mallika Sagar as Auctioneer for Monday's WPL Auction 2023: Report
Mallika had also conducted the auction of the 2021 Pro Kabaddi League.
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Ahead of the inaugural Women's Premier League (WPL) player auction set to be held on Monday in Mumbai, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has roped in a female auctioneer to conduct the proceedings.
A report in Cricbuzz says Mallika Sagar, a Mumbai-based art collector consultant for Modern and Contemporary Indian art and partner in Art India Consultants firm, will oversee the auction. Incidentally, Mallika, an auctioneer at the Pundole's in Mumbai, had conducted the auctions of the 2021 Pro Kabaddi League.
The report added that the BCCI has also informed the five teams that they have to bring in a minimum of 15 players in the squad while the minimum squad spend should be Rs 9 crore. They will be having a purse of Rs 12 crore, with each side allowed to buy only six foreign players.
"The franchisees are reminded of the WPL squad rules with respect to a minimum (15) and maximum (18) squad size, minimum squad spend (INR 9 crore) and the maximum number of overseas players in the squad (6)," the BCCI communication to the five teams was quoted as saying in the report.
In the WPL Player Auction, a total of 409 players will go under the hammer with 246 of them being Indian cricketers and 163 being overseas players, of which eight players are from the associate nations.
The players will be presented in sets based on their specialisation - marquee players, batters, allrounders, wicketkeepers, fast bowlers, spin bowlers and emerging players. Players are divided into five different slabs of base prices for the auction - INR 50 lakh, INR 40 lakh, INR 30 lakh, INR 20 lakh and INR 10 lakh.
India captain Harmanpreet Kaur, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana, all-rounder Deepti Sharma, U19 Women's T20 World Cup winning captain Shafali Verma, Australia's premier all-rounder Ellyse Perry, England's left-arm spinner Sophie Ecclestone, New Zealand captain Sophie Devine and former West Indies players Deandra Dottin are among the players with the highest base price.
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