NEW DELHI: Around 6.50 PM on Thursday, during the Women’s Premier League auction, a bidding war between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and UP Warriorz (UPW) caught the attention of everyone in the room and those watching. RCB, with ₹2.8 crore in their purse, and UPW (₹3.85 crore) — both had ten players in their squads — were going toe-to-toe to sign Shikha Pandey and not worried about breaking the bank.
RCB, in their pursuit to sign Pandey, went up to ₹2.2 crore (which would have left them with 11 players and ₹60 lakh) before hitting pause. UPW eventually signed Pandey for a whopping ₹2.4 crore, the third-highest pay of the day. RCB — who had their eyes set on Pandey, the best Indian pacer in three years of WPL — had to swiftly go to their alternate plans. Over the next few minutes, they went on to sign Arundhati Reddy (₹75 lakh) and Pooja Vastrakar (₹85 lakh), leaving them enough money to sign four more players, including hard-hitting all-rounder Grace Harris.
Going that high for Pandey and letting go at the right moment was a calculated choice RCB had to make in the heat of the moment. And it was not the first such bid of the day. Early on in the afternoon, RCB fought hard to sign Sophie Devine again before Gujarat Giants (GG) eventually got her for ₹2 crore.
What would have happened had they signed Pandey for ₹2.2 crores?
RCB head coach Malolan Rangarajan says they had alternate plans ready accordingly. For him, the decisions taken are a product of weeks and months of work that have gone behind the scenes in auction preparation and the trials they had in Surat and Mumbai, especially after retaining four players.
“The biggest challenge post the retention, and I'm not talking about RCB in isolation is there was a huge delta in the purse,” Rangarajan said in a select media interaction. “When there's a team at ₹14.5 crore, there's a team at nine crore, and then there's a drop to 5.5 and six. You have to be very clear. There's a lot of work being put in by our analysts behind the scenes, trying to understand what it takes to win the WPL. And having been one of the teams that won the tournament, unfortunately, most of the players we missed in the last edition. So, how can we make that side better with the available options? And then you see, this is the money we have. How can we be aggressive to get the best unit we think we can?
“That preparation involves a lot of data. Involves a lot of subjective experience and wisdom (from) people like Anya Shrubsole, RX Muralidhar, Sunetra Paranjpe, and all our coaches. We have five scouts who are watching games all around. We spoke about the trials. Then we start prioritising. With this money, we want to bring these kinds of players. Shikha, obviously because we could, is why we went till that number. It would have meant a little bit of compromise in other areas. But we would have more or less got the team. We still had a plan. And it was all going to plan,” he explains.
Before breaking down the squad and how it all came together, Rangarajan adds, “I have said this before and I have learned this. You don't win the WPL in the auction. You certainly stand a chance of losing the WPL in the auction. So I think there's one step we've taken. Now we need our coaches and everybody to work with the players and make them excel on the field.”
The calculated approach Rangarajan mentioned with their purse was crucial, especially in the first few rounds. RCB did not pick anyone in the marquee round and even saw Renuka Singh Thakur and Devine go to GG. They knew they had to play the waiting game, especially with the player pool to come later. And even then, they had to be cautious with who they went for and for how much. Take the case of Sophie Ecclestone. RCB and Delhi Capitals (DC) were bidding for the England spinner and RCB stopped at ₹80 lakh. DC got her for ₹85L before UPW used the Right to Match (RTM). While playing the waiting game up front, RCB quietly signed a young Georgia Voll, who could open with skipper Smriti Mandhana, Nadine de Klerk, a middle-order explosive batter and quality seamer who could replace Devine, pacer Lauren Bell, and left-arm spinners Radha Yadav and Linsey Smith. They missed Asha Sobhana but secured Prema Rawat, a promising young leggie.
“Ecclestone is a gun cricketer. There is no doubt about it. We want Ecclestone in the team, obviously. But that is not how it works. You have to prioritise. Within the whole strategy, you have to sit and think. We have Ecclestone at this price, or could we look at somebody who is not known? We unfortunately missed out on Sophie Molineux. And if Ecclestone did not work out, we knew where we were going and Linsey Smith is here.
“By the time the Arundhati set came, the delta had come down massively. I think we were a crore and a half apart (RCB and UP). So that again is an indicator. Those are the things we try to keep in line with. The girls we picked up in Radha, Aru are World Cup winners. It absolutely helps. After a point, we started getting options within the squad. Now we could play a different combination with our overseas (stars) because Arundhati and Pooja are there. We also acquired a very, very talented spinner again in Prema, who I think is going to go on to play for the country. Acquiring her for 20 lakhs was a steal.”
While the head coach reiterated that any connection of players working with Shrubsole or Mandhana in the past is a coincidence, he acknowledged that the familiarity helps, especially for a captain with a vision for the team. “Smriti has been putting in as much as she can in her busy period now. Anya, because she recently retired, is still in touch with the pulse of the game. She knows the players. Their input has been massive. I could go on about how much Anya has helped the whole process. Smriti knows exactly what she wants and she also has a vision also. And it aligns with how we want RCB to play on the field of play. I think we have a lot of capped players. That also makes a huge difference. Which also is one of the conscious things we did,” he said.
While RCB ticked most of their boxes before the accelerated auction, they went on to sign D Hemalatha, the one missing Indian batter they needed before adding a few back-up options. Through all this, the one thing they had to keep in mind — whether it is signing of players at a price or keeping in mind the fitness of Vastrakar, who has spent almost a year in rehab — is that they are picking a team for the next 14 month cycle and not two years (WPL 2027 will be in January after which there is a mega auction).
“With Pooja, first things first. (She is a) three-dimensional player. The facts are that. She is currently at the CoE recovering. Whatever the BCCI has communicated to us, it looks like she will be fit by next month. She hasn't played cricket for a while. We are very aware. But she is on the mend now and brings tremendous balance to our team if fit. It's not like we got her at base price. There is someone else who also saw value in her. So there are 50 days or more left for the WPL to start. So now that she is at CoE, she is in good hands. Hopefully, she comes out well with the rehab. She hasn't played for a while, I agree. But again an experienced player, we will help her ease into it.
“And yes, when you are picking a squad, especially with this WPL cycle, It's not even two years. It's 12 to 13 months. So it's one year you are picking two squads. So you take a close eye on where you are going to be playing in a couple of months. And you stretch your vision out even to maybe a year after that. So it is a mix of what we need for DY Patil and Vadodara (venues for WPL 2026) and what the team should look like, irrespective of the grounds," said Rangarajan.