Mumbai: Delhi Capitals team owner Parth Jindal believes it is too early to decide on a captain for its side in the Women’s Premier League (WPL), while adding that the choice of captain depends on the head coach at the end too.
But in set three, they got their first three signing in top-order batter Jemimah Rodrigues (INR 2.2 crore), who led India’s chase of 150 against Pakistan in Women’s T20 World Cup, followed by India’s U19 Women’s T20 World Cup winning captain Shafali Verma (INR 2 crore) and Australia’s multiple World Cups winning skipper Meg Lanning (INR 1.1 crore).
“No, it’s too early for that, but of course there are captaincy options in those names. One is an India Under-19 (winning) captain, 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, also depends on who else we pick up. But there are captaincy options for sure,” he said in the press conference.
Asked about adjusting to a lower auction purse (12 crore) as compared to men’s IPL ones, Jindal remarked, “That’s the beauty of the auction. We have to re-calibrate the numbers because we are used to the men’s (IPL) numbers and then you come in here. But, the budget is the budget and we are looking at it as the percentage of the purse. That’s the beauty of the auction. If you get it wrong, you get it really wrong and your team suffers. If you get it right, you really get it right. It’s a balancing act.”
Delhi didn’t sign a single player despite being in contention for a lot of names in the first two marquee sets of the player auction in Mumbai on Monday. “The way we approach the auction is, we have a ceiling price for every player. If the player goes above that ceiling, we have to pull out for those options. We think some of the players went above our estimation, but we are very happy with our buys so far. It’s very early days and a lot of work is yet to be done,” added Jindal.
All five franchises literally had just a fortnight to prepare for the player auction. Jindal admitted time was less to prepare for the auction, but credited head coach Jonathan Batty and assistant coach Hemlata Kala for taking the charge of proceedings for the Delhi team.
“It was extremely rushed and we didn’t have much time to prepare. Everything went very fast, teams were made quickly and matches are also nearly upon in the next two weeks. To be very honest, it’s new for me personally. I’m a follower of the women’s game but I didn’t know many names apart from some Indian and overseas legendary players.”
“But it’s competitive and tricky; some skill sets are also different like there are more allrounders which is more than the men’s game. But it’s the same for everyone and has been an amazing experience. I felt like a 10th standard student trying to learn the entire syllabus in the last nine days. Hemalatha and Jonathan are guiding us through this entire process.”
–IANS