BCCI Confirms Kochi for WPL Season 5 Auction

The next chapter of the Women’s Premier League is officially on the clock.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has confirmed to all five WPL franchises that the Season 5 player auction will take place on October 28 in Kochi, with formal communication sent to the teams on Wednesday (September 16). The build-up starts now.

Retention clock ticking

Franchises have been handed a hard deadline: September 28. By then, each side must finalise which players they will retain and who will be released back into the auction pool.

The squad framework stays tight. Each team can sign up to 18 players, with a maximum of six overseas cricketers. The salary cap for this cycle has been set at INR 15 crore, a figure that will force some sharp decisions in backrooms across the league as teams weigh star power against squad depth.

Some big names will inevitably be squeezed out. Others will become auction centrepieces in Kochi.

Mumbai, Vadodara to stage the season

While the auction heads to Kochi, the action itself is set to return to familiar territory.

BCCI is understood to have zeroed in on Mumbai and Vadodara as the venues for Season 5, which is expected to be played in the January-February window, mirroring last season’s schedule. The Cricket Club of India (CCI) in Mumbai and the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara have been identified as the definitive hosts.

Both grounds know the rhythm of this league. Season 4 unfolded across these same venues, with the final staged in the Gujarat city on February 5. The template worked, and the board appears keen to build continuity.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru will walk into that new season as defending champions, the side everyone else will be measuring themselves against.

Varanasi on hold

There had been a flicker of intrigue around a potential new destination. Varanasi, where a new stadium is under construction, emerged as a suggested host for a handful of WPL fixtures.

For now, that idea sits firmly in the “not yet” category.

Sources within the WPL setup indicate that any move to take league games to Varanasi hinges entirely on the stadium’s readiness. The ground will first need to prove itself through domestic fixtures before it can be considered for a tournament of this scale. At this stage, staging WPL matches there is viewed as a remote possibility rather than an imminent expansion.

So the roadmap is clear. Kochi for the auction. Mumbai and Vadodara for the cricket. A tight salary cap, a looming retention deadline, and one question hanging over the league: who builds the squad that can knock Royal Challengers Bengaluru off their perch?