In the last decade, India has witnessed a meteoric rise in leagues for different sports, but IPL remains the choice of the country by a mile. From massive salaries to getting the best players from across the globe, IPL keeps getting bigger with each passing season. PKL, or the Pro Kabaddi League has managed to leave its mark too, in terms of popularity, and also with regards to a few players drawing salaries over a crore, and even more. But the WPL seems to be caught in the middle, where the players are not getting paid as well as their counterparts in the IPL, but slightly better or equal, to the ones in PKL.
On Saturday, at the WPL Auction 2024, Annabel Sutherland and Kashvee Gautam invited bids of INR 2 crore, which were the highest this year. This is slightly lower than what kabaddi player Pawan Sehrwat (INR 2.605 cr) managed during the PKL Auction in October. In fact, in the Kabaddi auction, as many as three players got salaries of over INR 2 crore, as compared to two players getting to that mark in WPL.
Players Getting Over INR 2 Cr at PKL Auction
| Player | Amount (INR) |
| Pawan Sehrawat | 2.605 Cr |
| Maninder Singh | 2.12 Cr |
| Mohammadreza Shadloui | 2.35 Cr |
While it may be argued that the WPL is only in its second season and the salaries will pick up later, at the end of the day it’s still cricket, which overall does better than all the other sports in the country. If we dig a little deeper, at the WPL auction, only five players got bids of over a crore, which is equal to what players got during the PKL auction. In PKL, apart from Pawan, Maninder, and Shadloui, Fazel Atrachali and Siddharth Desai got bids of over a crore.
Players With Bids Over 1 Cr at WPL Auction 2024
| Player | Amount (INR) |
| Phoebe Litchfield | 1 Cr |
| Shabnim Ismail | 1.20 Cr |
| Kashvee Gautam | 2 Cr |
| Vrinda Dinesh | 1.30 Cr |
| Annabel Sutherland | 2 Cr |
Having said that, there are a few more players in the WPL, who’ll be getting paid a crore or more, but just looking at the auctions from PKL and WPL, both the leagues look at par. Meanwhile, India left-hand batter Smriti Mandhana has been retained for a price of INR 3.40 Cr, which is the maximum any player would be getting in WPL 2024.
