Getting deepti

ODI World Cup: UP Warriorz mentor Lisa Sthalekar said the franchise was unable to retain Deepti Sharma ahead of the WPL 2026 mega auction because of ‘the players we needed’ in the initial sets, but expressed relief at having the India all-rounder back in the squad.

At the ongoing WPL 2026 mega auction in New Delhi, Deepti, the Player of the Tournament in India’s recent Women’s ODI World Cup, became the joint second-most expensive player in the league’s auction history when UPW exercised their Right to Match (RTM) card to reclaim her for INR 3.2 crore.

“No, we needed to have a bigger purse. Obviously, if you retain a capped player like Deepti Sharma, you're losing 3.5 crore anyway from your purse. So, it was about being able to have some flexibility to navigate and pick up the players that we wanted to in probably the first one and two sets because there was a lot of good players that we needed in that set. So, that's the reason why she wasn’t retained. But thankfully, she's come back,” Lisa told reporters on the sidelines of the auction on Thursday.