India vice-captain Smriti Mandhana, the first player to go under the hammer at the inaugural Women’s Premier League auction on Monday, turned out to be the most expensive buy when the left-handed batter was picked up by Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 3.4 crore.

RCB fought off stiff competition from Mumbai Indians to secure the services of the India opener. The Bangalore franchise spent nearly 50 per cent of their Rs 12 crore purse on three players — all-rounders Sophie Devine, the New Zealand captain, at her base price of Rs 50 lakh, and Australia’s Ellyse Perry for Rs 1.7 crore, besides Mandhana — at the auction held in Mumbai.

Later they added 19-yearold wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh, who featured in India’s victorious Under-19 World Cup campaign last month, for Rs 1.9 crore.

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur was the second name picked at the auction, and this time Mumbai Indians prevailed, signing her for Rs 1.8 crore beating off competition from RCB and Delhi Capitals. Mumbai went on to add a couple of more all-rounders, splurging Rs 3.2 crore on England’s Natalie Sciver-Brunt and Rs 1 crore on New Zealand’s Amelia Kerr.

Among Mumbai’s other big-ticket Indian signings were all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar for Rs 1.9 crore and Yastika Bhatia for Rs 1.5 crore.

Delhi Capitals’ first buy was Jemimah Rodrigues, the franchise spending Rs 2.2 crore on the India top-order batter. They then added Australia’s multiple World Cup & Ashes-winning captain Meg Lanning for Rs 1.1 crore followed by India’s U-19 World Cup-winning captain Shafali Verma for Rs 2 crore.

All-rounder Deepti Sharma was UP Warriorz’s big catch, the second-most expensive Indian at Rs 2.6 crore. Warriorz also spent big on India all-rounder Devika Vaidya at Rs 1.4 crore and Shabnim Ismail at Rs 1 crore.

The No.1 ranked T20I bowler, Sophie Ecclestone, was the first Englishwoman to go under the hammer, bagging a Rs 1.8 crore deal from the Warriorz.

Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner triggered a bidding war between Mumbai and Warriorz before Gujarat Giants bagged the reigning No.1 T20I all-rounder with a late winning bid of Rs 3.2 crore. She will be joined by her compatriot Beth Mooney, who bagged Rs 2 crore. England’s Sophia Dunkley was their third pick, at Rs 60 lakh.

Ashleigh Gardner during their stints in the Women’s Big Bash League. Getty Images

Australia wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy was snapped up by Warriorz for only Rs 70 lakh while Meg Lanning, Australia’s previous ODI and T20 World Cup-winning captain, was signed by Capitals for Rs 1.1 crore.

But it was RCB who stole the show with their big-ticket Indian and overseas buys. “Everyone knows Mandhana and Perry, we were pretty committed to the couple of people we wanted to get,” RCB director of cricket Mike Hesson said.

“We’re very happy to get such quality players. It’s a dream result for us to get Mandhana, Perry and Devine. Smriti has got plenty of captaincy experience and is familiar with the Indian conditions, so highly likely (she’ll be captain).”

Delhi Capitals will have plenty of captaincy options in Jemimah, Lanning and Shafali.

“No, it’s too early for that, but of course there are captaincy options in those names,” co-owner Parth Jindal said at a media conference.“One is an India Under-19 captain (Shafali), another is a legend of the game in Meg Lanning. Jemimah too is a wonderful reader of the game. But it all depends on the coach at the end of it.”

The inaugural season of the WPL will be held from March 4 to 26, with all 22 matches being held at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai and the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.

Retention policy

The BCCI said the retention policy for the WPL will be finalised in due course and the teams will have the option of signing the current set of players for three years.

“As you know, the women’s FTP is not finalised yet...The moment ICC finalises the FTP, we will decide on the future course of action. The current squads will be for the first three years, then it will be decided,” Board secretary JayShah said in Mumbai.

“A few weeks ago, we became U-19 champions, we were also confused about how we will get into a 100-player pool. But, one of the most important aspects of the auction was that we got appropriate players and teams are also satisfied. That’s the biggest thing. Earlier, people were asking how you’d geta pool of players...”