Mumbai, Dec 9
Saturday turned out to be a huge pay-day for young uncapped India cricketers Kashvee Gautam and Vrinda Dinesh in the 2024 WPL auction in Mumbai. Kashvee, the fast-bowling all-rounder, was snapped up by Gujarat Giants for INR 2 crores, becoming the most expensive uncapped cricketer in WPL history.
Vrinda, the right-handed batter known for her power-hitting skills, was roped in by UP Warriorz for INR 1.3 crores. Both Kashvee and Vrinda have been consistent performers in domestic cricket, and were the members of India ‘A’ team which played three T20s against England, as well as being in the side who won the ACC Emerging Women’s Asia Cup earlier this year.
Former India cricketer Saba Karim believes Kashvee and Vrinda getting huge paychecks from the WPL auction is a wonderful sight and gives the duo a platform to get into the senior Indian team in future. “Exciting day for Indian cricket. It’s so wonderful to see uncapped players achieving so much of value from the franchises and that is what actually accentuates the growth of Indian cricket.” “Both these players have done well; the franchises have done a lot of homework and have watched their matches. The team scouts have travelled to see them play and both these players did well for India ‘A’ too.”
“That is the reason why these two players have gone for this amount of money. It’s a great opportunity for both these youngsters to do well in the WPL so that they can stake their claim in the Indian side going forward,” said Karim, a WPL Expert on JioCinema, to IANS on the sidelines of the auction.
In the first half of the auction, Royal Challengers Bangalore were making sensible moves by acquiring the services of England fast-bowler Kate Cross, as well as of Australia leg-spinner Georgia Wareham and India left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht.
In the second half, they would go on buy more bowling-based options in India fast-bowling all-rounder Simran Bahadur and Australia left-arm spinner Sophie Molineux. Karim thinks Bangalore are adding more arsenal to their bowling department after being batting heavy in their WPL 2023 squad.
“They identified from last year’s failure and got a realisation of the team being skewed more in favour of their batting. So, this is why they wanted to bolster their bowling contingent. They have got in Kate Cross, who can be an ideal partner for Renuka Singh Thakur. It was good to see Renuka coming back (into cricketing action via T20Is against England) with some kind of efficacy.”
“They tried to cover this base in terms of spin contingent and have brought in the left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht, who has a lot of experience, as well as a right-arm leg-spinner in Georgia Wareham. So, they have tried to cover all the bases in spin department as they already have Shreyanka Patil as their off-spin all-rounder.”
