New Delhi: The inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League will begin on March 4 and the tournament will go on till March 26. As reported by ESPNCricinfo, in an email to the five franchises, BCCI confirmed that the first season will be held entirely at two venues in Mumbai, which are the Brabourne Stadium and the DY Patil Stadium.
The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup will conclude on February 26 and eight days later, the cricket world will witness WPL. This means there is back-to-back high-voltage action in women’s cricket this year.
The e-mail also confirmed that the auctions for the league will be held on February 13 and BCCI CEO Hemang Amin confirmed that 1500 players had registered while a total of 90 players will be bought in the auction. Each team will have 15 to 18 players.
While the players play the world cup in South Africa, the auctions for the biggest league in terms of money in women’s cricket will take place back in India. The team managements are gearing up and have started hiring coaches and mentors.
On January 16, the BCCI announced that the WPL media rights have been sold to Viacom 18 for Rs 951 crore for a period of 2023 to 2027 and on January 25, the board sold the five franchises for a total of Rs 4669.99 crore. The franchises were bought by Adani Sportline (Ahmedabad), which was the biggest bidder with Rs 1289 crores, Indiawin Sports for Rs 912.99 crores, Royal Challengers Sports for Rs 901 crores, JSW GMR Cricket for Rs 810 crores and Capri Global Holdings for Rs 757 crores.
List of coaches and mentors (till now):
Gujarat Giants- Mithali Raj, Rachael Haynes
Mumbai franchise- Jhulan Goswami, Charlotte Edwards
