The first few sets of the WPL Mega Auction saw plenty of player movement between teams<\/p>\n
Meg Lanning will be turning out for the UP Warriorz, after the former Australia captain was secured by the Lucknow-based team for A$325,755 (INR 1.9 crore) in the WPL Mega Auction.<\/p>\n
UP’s inaugural captain and the current Australia skipper, Alyssa Healy, and big-hitter Grace Harris were however both passed up by the five franchises in the first round.<\/p>\n
Delhi Capitals were the first group to raise the paddle for Lanning, hoping to buy back the star player who led them to three consecutive finals but wasn’t among their retentions.<\/p>\n
But with the smallest purse in the room, that was always going to be a challenge, and they lost out to a Warriorz unit that came into the auction with a near clean slate and with a big bank to spend.<\/p>\n
The Capitals later secured South African captain Laura Wolvaardt for $A188,595 (INR 1.1 crore) to fill the now vacant spot at the top of the order.<\/p>\n
Lanning could be opening the batting with Phoebe Litchfield, who earned a pay hike after being secured by the Warriorz for A$205,740 (INR 1.1 crore).<\/p>\n
Healy was the first player to go under the hammer in the opening marquee set but generated no interest in the room.<\/p>\n
The wicketkeeper-batter’s struggles with multiple injuries over a sustained period could be the major factor deterring the sides from spending early on her and blocking an overseas slot on their list.<\/p>\n
Harris too has been managing a calf injury that she sustained ahead of the World Cup and has sat out of multiple WBBL|11 games for the Brisbane Heat.<\/p>\n
As has happened in previous IPL and WPL auctions, Healy can be called back by the sides later in the day after the accelerated rounds.<\/p>\n
Devine opens the batting to destructive effect<\/p>\n
Following her free-flowing 24-ball 46 in the WBBL earlier on Thursday, New Zealand veteran Sophie Devine became the first player in the auction to earn a new WPL contract. She will be joining her Perth Scorchers teammate Beth Mooney at the Gujarat Giants, who shelled out A$342,900 (INR 2 crore) for the allrounder.<\/p>\n
Indian allrounder Deepti Sharma, recently named player of the ODI World Cup, was the biggest earner in the marquee set, claimed back by her original team Warriorz for A$548,640 (INR 3.3 crore) using their Right-to-Match card.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first few sets of the WPL Mega Auction saw plenty of player movement between teams Meg Lanning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-312501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}