New Delhi: Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) have retained their title-winning skipper Smriti Mandhana ahead of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2025 auction. The swashbuckling opener led the team to title triumph in the 2024 edition and was notably the most expensive acquisition in the first-ever auction. She keeps the stature intact for the third edition of the WPL as well.
Apart from the inaugural edition, the WPL is yet to see a mega auction. This means that all five franchises retain players at the same price for which they were initially bought during the auction. RCB lavished a massive Rs. 3.4 crore on Smriti for 2023 edition and she was retained for the same amount ahead of the WPL 2024. The same trend continues as RCB has retained Smriti Mandhana for Rs. 3.4 crore for the WPL 2025.
🗣 𝑶𝑭𝑭𝑰𝑪𝑰𝑨𝑳 𝑨𝑵𝑵𝑶𝑼𝑵𝑪𝑬𝑴𝑬𝑵𝑻: 𝑹𝑬𝑻𝑬𝑵𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵 𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻
Presenting to you the early bird entries to our Class of 2025! ❤
With a dynamic mix of youth, experience, talent, and flair, these Retained Champions are primed to defend our #WPL silverware! 🏆… pic.twitter.com/7mhXbtqE2h
— Royal Challengers Bengaluru (@RCBTweets) November 7, 2024
This also means that RCB shelled out more than a fifth of their purse amount to keep their skipper with them. The franchise has only released seven players, including the notable overseas pair of Nadine de Klerk and Heather Knight. Smriti has a big job of defending the title in the WPL 2025 as she will expect to be at her best with the bat. Although she improved in the WPL 2025, she is yet to justify her price tag and go all guns blazing.
Smriti – the most expensive WPL player
After the conclusion of retentions for WPL 2025, Smriti remains the most expensive player in the league. She is only marginally above the all-rounders Ashleigh Gardener and Natalie Sciver-Brunt and both have been retained by the Gujarat Giants (GG) and Mumbai Indians (MI) respectively.
In late 2022, Smriti was famously the first player to go under the hammer in the maiden WPL auction. For her, it was a bidding war between RCB and MI and the signing made a huge statement, also setting the tone for the remainder of the auction.
RCB retained and released list for WPL 2025
Retained – Smriti Mandhana, Ellyse Perry, Richa Ghosh, Sabbineni Meghana, Shreyanka Patil, Georgia Wareham, Asha Sobhana, Renuka Singh, Sophie Devine, Sophie Molineux, Ekta Bisht, Kanika Ahuja, Kate Cross, Danielle Wyatt-Hodge (traded from UPW)
Released – Disha Kasat, Indrani Roy, Nadine de Klerk, Shubha Satheesh, Shraddha Pokkarkar, Simran Bahadur, Heather Knight
Purse remaining – Rs. 3.25 crore
Remaining slots – 4
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