Smriti, Harmanpreet and Shefali are expected to bid more than one crore rupees.

The names of India’s swashbuckling batsmen Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and youngster Shefali Verma are expected to vie for bids during the inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL) auction here on Monday. Alyssa Healy, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Nate Sciver, Megan Schutt and Deandra Dottin are some of the big names in foreign players expected to fetch big bids. Five teams – Mumbai Indians, Delhi Capitals, RCB, Gujarat Giants and UP Warriors – will be bidding for 90 players from the list of 409 players.

For the first year, each team will have a ‘salary purse’ (limited amount) of Rs 12 crore and the 18-player squad will include six overseas players. With this, at least 20 to 25 players out of 60 Indians are expected to be sold for a good auction amount. The base price will be in five ‘brackets’ with the lowest being Rs 10 lakh and the highest being Rs 50 lakh. The other brackets would be Rs 20, 30 and 40 lakhs. Apart from the current Indian team, it is expected that members of Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa will be in high demand in the auction.

If some officials associated with the franchise are to be believed, Smriti, Shefali, Harmanpreet and all-rounder Deepti Sharma are expected to earn between Rs 1.25 crore and Rs 2 crore. Big hitter Richa Ghosh and fast bowler Renuka Thakur will also attract a lot of interest from the bidders. Something similar will happen with spinners like Rajeshwari Gaikwad and Radha Yadav and fast bowlers like Meghna Singh and Shikha Pandey. Jemimah Rodrigues, who has done well in overseas T20 leagues, can also fetch a decent amount in the auction.

Jasia Akhtar of Kashmir and Swagatika Rath of Railways are the main names in the category of uncapped Indian players. Batsman Shweta Sehrawat, spinner Parshvi Chopra, Mannat Kashyap and Archana Devi from the U-18 World Cup-winning women’s team, along with fast bowler Titas Sadhu, are also expected to sell for a good amount. All the five franchises will be eyeing the best captain and apart from Smriti and Harmanpreet, other candidates include veteran Meg Lanning, England skipper Heather Knight and New Zealand skipper Sophie Devine.

In this, a minimum amount of nine crores will have to be spent to buy players, while the number of mandatory members in the team will be 15 and a maximum of 18 players can be kept. The team can have a maximum of 12 Indian and a maximum of six foreign players. The auction will feature 246 Indian and 155 foreign players.