WPL Auction 2023: BCCI ropes in female auctioneer ahead of inaugural auction

Ahead of the much-awaited inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has roped in a female auctioneer for the auction which is scheduled to take place on Monday, February 13, from 2.30 PM IST onwards.

As per Cricbuzz, Malika Advani, a Mumbai-based art collector consultant for Modern and Contemporary Indian art and partner in Art India Consultants firm, will conduct the auction. Previously, Richard Madley, Charu Sharma, and Hugh Edmeades have been part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) auctions.

A pre-auction meeting for the franchises will be conducted by the BCCI on Sunday, February 12 at 8 PM. Furthermore, the board has also confirmed that there will be strategy breaks every hour during the course of the auction. Franchises will be allotted 10 minutes to review their tactics in regular intervals.

"Following the conclusion of each set, there may (at the Auctioneer's discretion) be a short break to allow franchises time to re-evaluate tactics. The length of each break will be announced by the Auctioneer at the conclusion of the relevant set,” read the BCCI note as reported by Cricbuzz. 

“A warning bell will ring two minutes before the resumption of the Player Auction after each break. The Player Auction will re-start promptly after each break. It is anticipated that these short breaks will total a minimum of 10 minutes in every hour of the Player Auction proceedings," the BCCI note concluded. 

409 players to go under the hammer on February 13

In the lead up to the big day, a total of 409 players were pruned from the list of 1,525 cricketers that had registered for the WPL auction. As many as 246 Indians are part of the auction whereas 163 players are from the overseas nations, of which eight players belong to the associate nations.

Each team is allowed to have up to six overseas players, adding to that, the squads can have between 15 to 18 players to complete the team. The competition is scheduled to be played between March 4 and March 26 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai and Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.

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