 "WPL 2024: Players that have been ruled out of second season and their replacements")
The second edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) is just around the corner, with defending champions Mumbai Indians set to face Delhi Capitals in the opening match on Friday, 23 February in what will be a rematch of last year’s final.
The Harmanpreet Kaur-led Mumbai Indians had defeated the Delhi Capitals, led by Australian legend Meg Lanning, by seven wickets in last year’s summit clash to be crowned inaugural WPL champions. The Capitals had initially topped the league stage and qualified directly for the final while MI defeated UP Warriorz, led by another Australian in Alyssa Healy, by 72 runs in the Eliminator.
Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Giants failed to reach the playoffs, finishing fourth and fifth respectively with six defeats in eight outings.
While the inaugural edition had taken place in and around the city of Mumbai, with the Brabourne Stadium and the DY Patil Stadium hosting all the matches, this year’s edition is set to take place in Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium and Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium.
There have also been quite a few personnel changes among the five franchises with uncapped Indian players Kashvee Gautam and Vrinda Gautam going for more than a crore each and Australia all-rounder Annabel Sutherland, who had represented Gujarat Giants last year, becoming the most expensive buy in this year’s auction by going to the Delhi Capitals for Rs 2 crore.
Stars of the game such as Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu too are set to make their maiden appearance in the league after having been overlooked since the first ever WPL auction that took place in February last year.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsAhead of the opening game of the second edition, we also take a look at some of the players who have been ruled out either due to injury or due to national duty, and the players who have replaced them:
OUT: Heather Knight; IN: Nadine de Klerk
Heather Knight was amongst the first to get ruled out of the second edition of the Women’s Premier League, with news of the England captain prioritising her national team’s multi-format tour of New Zealand over the WPL getting announced on 26 January.
South Africa’s Nadine de Klerk, who has 439 runs and 37 wickets in T20Is and has also represented Brisbane Heat and the Oval Invincibles in the Big Bash League and The Hundred respectively, has been roped in as Knight’s replacement in the Royal Challengers Bangalore squad this year.
Knight had scored 135 runs and collected four wickets in eight appearances for the Royal Challengers last year while de Klerk is set for her maiden appearance.
OUT: Lauren Bell; IN: Chamari Athapaththu
England seamer Lauren Bell, who had been acquired at her base price of Rs 30 lakh by the UP Warriorz last year, decided to follow skipper Knight’s footsteps and withdraw from the second edition of the Women’s Premier League in order to make herself available for the entire tour of New Zealand. The Warriorz would then name Chamari Athapaththu as Bell’s replacement.
The fact that Athapaththu went unsold in this year’s player auction came as a surprise for many, especially after the senior all-rounder had starred in Sri Lanka’s 2-1 T20I series win in their tour of England recently and had also finished as the second-highest run-scorer in the Women’s Big Bash League with 552 runs. The Warriorz will be hopeful of her carrying her form over to WPL 2024.
OUT: Kashvee Gautam; IN: Sayali Satghare
Chandigarh all-rounder Kashvee Gautam, who had once collected all 10 wickets in an U-19 one-day match, made headlines after getting sold to the Gujarat Giants for a whopping amount of Rs 2 crore — becoming the most expensive uncapped player in the league in the process.
She will, however, have to wait a little longer to make her WPL debut after getting ruled out of the second season due to injury.
The Giants would name Mumbai all-rounder Sayali Satghare as her replacement.
OUT: Kanika Ahuja; IN: Shradda Pokharkar
Like Gautam, Punjab all-rounder Kanika Ahuja too is set to miss the second edition of the WPL due to injury, with the Royal Challengers Bangalore naming Maharashtra left-arm seamer Shradda Pokharkar as her replacement.
Unlike Gautam, however, Ahuja’s already made her mark in the league, having played seven out of RCB’s eight games in the the inaugural season where she collected 98 runs at a strike rate of 132.43 besides collecting two wickets.
Athapaththu’s not the only senior international who’s set to make her WPL debut this year, with veteran New Zealand seamer Lea Tahuhu set to be handed her maiden cap in the cash-rich Indian league after being included by the Gujarat Giants as a replacement for Australia’s Lauren Cheatle.
The 33-year-old Tahuhu has 187 international wickets to her name from 173 appearances and brings with her the kind of experience that will not only greatly benefit skipper Mooney and her team, but will also help shape some of the younger bowlers in the squad, especially the uncapped Indians.
Cheatle, who was set to make her WPL debut this season, ruled her self out of the tournament in order to undergo surgery to have skin cancer removed from her neck.
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