The Women's Premier League's (WPL) auction is underway where franchises continue to break banks to rope in their favourite players on Monday (February 13) for the inaugural edition's slugfest which is slated to kick off from March 4. The glitzy WPL auction kicked off in style with the signing of Smriti Mandhana who became the first player to be sold in auction grind. All the five franchises were seen in a tug of war to rope in India's star opener as she finally grabbed a whopping deal of Rs 3.40 Crore by Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Umpteen women cricketers bagged million dollar deals be it any Indian or overseas cricketers. But some high profile captains were marred by the bad luck as they failed to attract any bidder in the first round of action-packed auction and remained unsold so far.
Captains' ‘bad day-out’
Not a single franchise bought these four captains in the auction nor did they showed interest in them. The first name is of Sune Luus, who is South Africa's skipper and leading her team in the ongoing Women's T20 World Cup 2023. In the very first round of the WPL auction, the star spinner Luus couldn't bag a single deal. She has played 97 T20Is in which she has scored 1030 runs riding on four fifties while she has also snared 49 wickets.
Another name on which bidders didn't show any interest is Heather Knight, who was leading England to Women's T20 World Cup 2016. Despite having such good numbers in T20Is, she failed to get a single deal. She has played 93 T20Is in which she has scored 1506 riding on one century and four fifties.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu was the other big name who didn't get much traction in the WPL auction. Not a single franchise showed interest on her. Chamari is currently leading Sri Lanka in the Women's T20 World Cup 2023. Her base price was Rs 30 lakh but despite this no one took her in their team. In 106 T20Is, Chamari has 2253 runs against her name riding on a ton and six fifties.
