WPL 2024 to begin on February 23 after auction next month: Report

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Women's Premier League's new season, WPL 2024, will be played in a home-away format and will start on February 23 with venues in Mumbai and Bangalore, as per reports. The auction will take in December this year.

The schedule for the tournament is yet to be finalised but WPL 2024 will be played in a caravan format, where all the teams will move from one city to another after playing all their set of matches there. The format also means all host teams will play all their home matches in one go.

The second edition of the WPL 2024 comes earlier than the inaugural tournament, which began on March 4 and ended on 26 with Mumbai Indians crowned champions after defeating Delhi Capitals in the final by seven wickets at the Brabourne Stadium.

As per reports, the board will hold an auction in December 2023 where teams will be able to add players to their squad. The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India), on October 19, published a list of players and of those, the five WPL franchises retained 60 players and released 29.

Apart from Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals, the other teams in the WPL 2024 are Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujarat Giants, and UP Warriorz. There will be no new addition of a franchise in the second season.

Harmanpreet Kaur's Mumbai Indians and Meg Lanning's Delhi Capitals were the most dominant teams in the inaugural edition of WPL with six wins each in the league stages while DC topped the table on superior net run rate.

Topping the table proved crucial for the capital outfit, who directly qualified for the final while Mumbai Indians had to beat UP Warriorz in the sole play-off match to qualify for the final.

WPL was soon followed by the Indian Premier League and is expected to be the case next year as well with ICC T20 World Cup slated later in the year in West Indies and the USA.