The Women's Premier League has confirmed its player auction for the fifth edition — WPL 2027 — will be held on October 28 at the Grand Hyatt in Kochi, following a retention window that closed on September 28. Unlike last year's mega-auction, this season placed no cap on the number of players each of the five franchises could retain, which has left a smaller pool of slots to be filled in what shapes up as more of a mini-auction than a full rebuild. The tournament itself runs from January 14 to February 7, 2027, with each squad capped at 18 players and working with a purse of Rs 15 crore.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru have retained a 12-player core built around captain Smriti Mandhana, alongside Richa Ghosh, Ellyse Perry, Shreyanka Patil, Georgia Voll, Nadine de Klerk, Radha Yadav, Lauren Bell, Prema Rawat, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar and Prathyusha Kumar, releasing Grace Harris, Linsey Smith, Gautami Naik and Dayalan Hemalatha. Delhi Capitals have kept 13 players, led by Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Laura Wolvaardt, Annabel Sutherland and Marizanne Kapp, while releasing Sneh Rana, Lizelle Lee, Alana King, Taniyaa Bhatia, Pragati Singh and Eddla Srujana. Notably, Delhi have also retained Niki Prasad, fresh off a Player-of-the-Match performance with bat and ball for India A Women against Australia A Women in Mohali.
Gujarat Giants hold onto the largest retained squad of any side, 15 players deep, including Sophie Devine, Ashleigh Gardner, Beth Mooney, Georgia Wareham and Anushka Sharma, while releasing Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Aayushi Soni, Titas Sadhu and Shivani Singh. With that much of their roster already settled, the Giants head into the October 28 auction with comparatively little room to add fresh faces.
Mumbai Indians have retained 11 players around captain Harmanpreet Kaur, including Hayley Matthews, Natalie Sciver-Brunt, Amelia Kerr and Vaishnavi Sharma — another name straight out of that same dominant Mohali performance against Australia A Women, where she took nine wickets across both innings. UP Warriorz have also kept 11, built around Meg Lanning, Deepti Sharma and Sophie Ecclestone, releasing Kiran Navgire, Chloe Tryon, Amy Jones, Deandra Dottin, Asha Sobhana and Shweta Sehrawat.
With most marquee names already locked in by retention, October 28 in Kochi will largely be about filling out the remaining bench depth across all five franchises rather than reshaping any squad wholesale — a contrast with last year's mega-auction, which filled 73 slots from scratch. For fantasy and franchise-building purposes, the retained cores already give a clear read on each side's likely core XI heading into January, with the auction mostly deciding squad balance rather than headline recruitment.
The spread between franchises is notable heading into the auction: Gujarat Giants' 15 retained players leaves them with only three slots to fill toward the 18-player cap, while Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians, at 12 and 11 respectively, have somewhat more room to add fresh names and rebalance their bowling or batting depth. UP Warriorz, also at 11 retained, released a cluster of established white-ball names in Kiran Navgire, Chloe Tryon, Amy Jones and Deandra Dottin, which suggests they will be among the more active bidders once the auction opens rather than simply topping up bench cover.
Even before a single auction lot is sold, the retention lists give fantasy and franchise-building audiences a near-final read on each side's batting and bowling spine for WPL 2027: Mandhana still anchors Bengaluru's top order, Rodrigues and Wolvaardt give Delhi a settled core around their overseas pairing, and Mumbai's retention of both Matthews and Harmanpreet Kaur keeps two senior captaincy options on the same roster. The auction will add depth and squad cover, but the identity of each franchise's likely first-choice XI is already largely set.
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Auction dates, retention lists and tournament details in this article are verified against same-day and freshly re-checked reporting from multiple outlets, current as of October 5, 2026.
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