The first ever mega auction of Women’s premiere league in India today came packed with some high stakes bidding wars, big purchases and RTM drama. Royal Challengers Bengaluru entered the WPL 2026 Auction with one of the tighter purses, but a clear plan to protect their established core and plug the gaps that hurt them in the middle overs last season.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) entered the auction with a budget of Rs 6.15 crore and 14 slots to fill. Towards the end of the auction, the club had depleted all of their funds in the process of these acquisitions.
RCB’s performance at the auctions
Following the guidelines for the auction that restricts the retention allowed per club to 5, RCB had exercised its right to retain 4 big players from last season namely Smriti Mandhana, Richa Ghosh, Ellyse Perry and Shreyanka Patil.
With this its batting power and leadership secured with names like Smriti Mandhana, Ellyse Perry and Richa Ghosh RCB avoided making big purchases and focused on signing players who add stability, role flexibility, and depth across all departments of furling, bowling and batting to improve upon their performance from last year.
The most expensive purchase made by RCB today was that of Lauren Bel. RCB acquired the English right arm fast bowler for 90 lakhs, hoping to provide the club with good pace options at the death overs. The club’s second most expensive purchase surprisingly was that of Pooja Vastrakar. Despite being injured recently, Pooja attracts major bids from RCB and Up Warriorz.
After a small bidding war between the two franchises, Pooja was finally acquired by RCB for 85 lakhs. Speaking to presenters post the auction RCB owners said that they felt confident in their acquisition of Pooka Vastrakar stating that when the player enters the game in form, she can turn around the match from any position.
Complete list of players signed by RCB
After engaging in multiple bidding wars and depleting all of their funds RCB put together a squadron of 18 athletes for the upcoming WPL 2026 season. All individuals selected by the club and their respective cost to the franchise have been listed as follows.
| S.no | Player | Status | Role | Base Price (Cr) | Sold Price (Cr) |
| 1 | Smriti Mandhana | Retained | BAT | 3.5 | Retained |
| 2 | Richa Ghosh | Retained | BAT | 2.75 | Retained |
| 3 | Ellyse Perry | Retained | AR | 2 | Retained |
| 4 | Lauren Bell | NEW | BOWL | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| 5 | Pooja Vastrakar | NEW | AR | 0.5 | 0.85 |
| 6 | Arundhati Reddy | NEW | AR | 0.3 | 0.75 |
| 7 | Grace Harris | NEW | AR | 0.3 | 0.75 |
| 8 | Radha Yadav | NEW | AR | 0.3 | 0.65 |
| 9 | Nadine de Klerk | NEW | AR | 0.3 | 0.65 |
| 10 | Shreyanka Patil | Retained | AR | Retained | 0.6 |
| 11 | Georgia Voll | NEW | BAT | 0.4 | 0.6 |
| 12 | Dayalan Hemalatha | NEW | AR | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| 13 | Linsey Smith | NEW | BOWL | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| 14 | Prema Rawat | NEW | AR | 0.1 | 0.2 |
| 15 | Gautami Naik | NEW | AR | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| 16 | Kumar Prathyoosha | NEW | BAT | 0.1 | 0.1 |
