Who is Mallika Sagar? The female auctioneer helming the first-ever WPL Auction in 2023

With the Women's Premier League (WPL) Auction set to take place on February 13, the major limelight will be on Mallika Sagar, who will preside over the maiden WPL player auction. This would be the first time that a female auctioneer has been brought in to oversee a big cricket event as previously in all IPL auctions, either Richard Madley or Hugh Edmeades took the stage to auction the players. A total of 409 players will be auctioned at the Jio World Convention Center, Mumbai.

As WPL is a new initiative of BCCI, therefore, some new introductions from the start were expected, and in comes Mallika Sagar, the first female auctioneer of the event of this scale. However, this won't be the first time that Sagar would be auctioning an event. Let's figure out all about Mallika Sagar.

Who is Mallika Sagar?

Mallika Sagar. who would be seen in action throwing the hammer is a Mumbai-based art collector and consultant for modern and contemporary Indian art, as well as a partner in the Art India Consultants organisation. It should be noted that Mallika has performed the 2021 Pro Kabaddi League auctions.

Extraordinary auctioneer Mallika Sagar of @PUNDOLES captivated the room with her quick wit as the stakes were raised.

A heartfelt thanks to our #art partners for the #SanctuaryFundraiser art auction.

@akaraart @gallery7 @pundoles @sarmaya_india @paulusmarabrahamus #Auctio pic.twitter.com/Q70Eci1V3W

— Sanctuary Asia (@SanctuaryAsia) March 30, 2019

About WPL

Women's Premier League (WPL) is a tournament based on the lines of Indian Premier League. The tournament currently includes 5 franchises. Three are owned by the IPL outfits, Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Delhi Capitals and the remaining teams are Ahmedabad and Lucknow. Each team will get a purse of 12 crores. This means they would have to build the entire squad in this much price money. The marquee players i.e., Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma, and Smriti Mandhana will start with Rs.50 Lakhs as their base price. League will follow the T20 league. 

So, with all the proceedings in the right place, it remains to be seen how much successful WPL would become. The cricket world would be all hyped up to watch the tournament, set to begin next month.