Along with releasing the schedule of the first season of the Women's Premier League, the date of the auction of the players has also been announced by the IPS chairman.
New Delhi: Ever since the team seeding of the Women's Premier League (WPL), the cricket world has been waiting for the schedule of this new high profile Indian league. Now the clocks of this wait seem to be over. In this episode, Arun Dhumal, Chairman of the Governing Council of the Indian Premier League (IPL), has made a big announcement on Monday. Revealing the dates for the first season of the Women's Premier League, he said that it will be played in Mumbai from March 4 to 26.
All matches will be held in Mumbai
The IPL chairman said that the Brabourne Stadium and DY Patil Stadium in Mumbai will host all the matches of the Women's Premier League. The first match of the tournament is expected to be played between the franchise owned by Gujarat Giants and Mumbai Indians.
Players auction on february 13 in mumbai
Dhumal also confirmed that the players' auction for the WPL will be held in Mumbai on February 13, a day after India's match against Pakistan in the Women's T20 World Cup. Let us tell you that around 1500 players have registered for the auction in the league and the final list is expected to be released later this week. In the player auction to be held next month, each team will have Rs 12 crore and will have to buy a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 18 players.
In the Women's Premier League, each team will be allowed to field a total of five foreign players, including one from an associate member country, in the playing XI during a match. A total of 22 matches will be played in the inaugural season with the top teams from the league stage qualifying directly for the finals. The second and third-place teams will compete for a place in the title match.
A total of five teams will participate in the first season of WPL. Out of these five teams, three franchises have been bought by IPL team owners Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals. The remaining two teams have been bought by Capri Global Holdings (Lucknow) and Adani Sportsline.
Second largest league in the world
The auction of the five teams of the Women's Premier League fetched a total of Rs 4669.99 crore and the Board of Control for Cricket in India sold the media rights of the tournament for Rs 951 crore. In this way, WPL has become the second biggest league in the world after IPL.