The WPL 2027 player auction got under way at the Grand Hyatt in Kochi on the evening of October 28, with the 63 retained players already locked in and 146 players going under the hammer for the 27 remaining slots, seven of them reserved for overseas names.
Australian all-rounder Sophie Molineux went to UP Warriorz for ₹1.1 crore, the highest price of the auction's opening sales, after registering at the top base price alongside England's Sophia Dunkley. UP Warriorz were also active lower down the order, adding all-rounder Grace Harris and off-spinner Sneh Rana, both for ₹30 lakh apiece.
Delhi Capitals moved first for the day's opening sale, bringing in Kiran Navgire for ₹75 lakh. Gujarat Giants, who went into the auction with the biggest retained group of the five franchises, added Ireland all-rounder Orla Prendergast for ₹30 lakh and uncapped Indian batter G. Kamalini for ₹40 lakh, continuing to build around their core of Sophie Devine, Ashleigh Gardner and Beth Mooney.
With those sales done, reported remaining purses stood at roughly ₹2.05 crore for UP Warriorz with five slots left to fill, ₹1.15 crore for Royal Challengers Bengaluru with five slots, ₹0.9 crore for Mumbai Indians with six slots, ₹0.55 crore for Gujarat Giants with five slots, and just ₹0.35 crore for Delhi Capitals with four slots — a sign that the overseas all-rounder and finisher roles still open could get contested sharply as the sale continues.
The auction sets up squads for a WPL 2027 season scheduled to run from January 14 to February 7. With the headline retentions already locked in before the sale began, the early movement for Molineux, Navgire and Prendergast shows demand concentrated on proven overseas all-rounders rather than marquee names, a pattern likely to continue as the remaining slots are filled through the rest of the evening.
Molineux's move to UP Warriorz adds a genuine all-format all-rounder to a squad already anchored by Meg Lanning and Deepti Sharma, while Kamalini's arrival at Gujarat Giants is one to track as a potential value pick if she secures an opening role alongside Devine. Confirm final squads once the auction wraps before locking in picks for the new season.
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Sale prices and remaining-purse figures in this article are verified against same-day and freshly re-checked live-auction reporting as of October 28, 2026; the auction was still in progress at the time of writing, and a number of slots remained unfilled.
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