WPL 2027 Auction Puts 146 Players Up For 27 Slots In Kochi

The WPL 2027 auction will put 146 players in front of five franchises on 28 October, with 27 slots to fill. The sale is in Kochi and begins at 5.30pm. Of the 146, 119 are Indian and 27 are overseas. Twenty of the slots are reserved for Indian players and seven for overseas.

England's Sophia Dunkley and Australia's Sophie Molineux hold the highest base price at 50 lakh rupees. The shortlist was released on Monday.

The pool, broken down

Ninety-seven of the 119 Indian players are uncapped. The capped Indian group numbers 22. Among the overseas names, 14 are capped and 13 are not. Six come from Associate nations, with Scotland, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates represented.

Twenty slots for 119 Indians

The arithmetic is tight at the domestic end. Twenty places are available to 119 Indian players, and 97 of those have never played for India. That is roughly one slot for every six names. For state associations and academies feeding the senior domestic competitions, the auction list is the clearest public signal of which pathway players the five franchises have been tracking.

The capped Indian group of 22 will compete for a smaller share of that same allocation. Franchises carry retained squads into the auction, which is why the slot count is 27 rather than a full rebuild.

Dunkley and Molineux lead the base prices

Two players sit in the 50 lakh bracket. Four are listed at 40 lakh: G Kamalini and Kiran Navgire of India, and Heather Graham and Jess Jonassen of Australia. Thirty players are in the 30 lakh band.

• 50 lakh: 2 players
• 40 lakh: 4 players
• 30 lakh: 30 players
• 20 lakh: 4 players
• 10 lakh: 106 players

The 10 lakh band holds 106 names, which is the bulk of the list. Tara Norris of the United States was traded from UP Warriorz to Mumbai Indians at that base price ahead of the auction.

Six Associate names on the list

The inclusion of six players from Scotland, the Netherlands and the UAE gives Associate cricketers a route into a full-member franchise league. Those boards have had few such openings. A single contract changes the funding case a board can make for its women's programme. It also gives the player a season of cricket her domestic calendar cannot provide.

Scotland, the Netherlands and the UAE all run women's programmes on budgets a fraction of the size of a full member's. None of the three has a professional domestic T20 competition of its own. An auction slot is the shortest route their players have to one.

The auction runs on 28 October. The 2027 season follows.