India's Smriti Mandhana is the most expensive player at the Women's Premier League after being signed by Bangalore. Reuters
India's Smriti Mandhana is the most expensive player at the Women's Premier League after being signed by Bangalore. Reuters
India's Smriti Mandhana is the most expensive player at the Women's Premier League after being signed by Bangalore. Reuters
India's Smriti Mandhana is the most expensive player at the Women's Premier League after being signed by Bangalore. Reuters

Women's cricketers hit jackpot during WPL 2023 player auction


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India opener Smriti Mandhana, England all-rounder Nat Sciver-Brunt and Australia's Ashleigh Gardner struck it rich in Monday's player auction for the inaugural Women's Premier League next month.

Nearly 450 players went under the hammer and several of them experienced the biggest payday of their career after five franchises entered the auction with a team purse of 120 million Indian rupees ($1.45m) each.

The auction began with a bang as Bangalore splurged 34m Indian rupees ($415,000) – over a quarter of their purse – to sign left-handed batter Mandhana.

The 26-year-old was expected to get the biggest bid as she is the premier batter in the country.

Sciver-Brunt joined Mumbai Indians, coached by former England captain Charlotte Edwards, for 32m rupees ($390,000), which is 10 times more the highest salary in the women's Hundred run by the England board.

She became the league's most expensive overseas player along with Gardner, currently the top-ranked T20 all-rounder, who joined Gujarat Giants for the same amount.

Delhi Capitals signed Australia captain Meg Lanning for 11m rupees ($134,000). Bangalore put together an impressive line-up, signing Australia all-rounder Ellyse Perry, India wicketkeeper-batter Richa Ghosh and New Zealand captain Sophie Devine.

"It's a dream result for us to get Mandhana, Perry and Devine," Mike Hesson, RCB's director of cricket, told reporters.

"Smriti has got plenty of captaincy experience and is familiar with the Indian conditions so highly likely she'll be captain."

Mumbai Indians signed India captain Harmanpreet Kaur for 18m rupees ($220,000) and immediately put her in charge of the side.

"It is a game-changer for all of us," Kaur said of the auction in a video from the ongoing T20 World Cup in South Africa.

"This will entirely change women's cricket not just in India. We all are looking forward to that."

The five-team WPL, three of them owned by Indian Premier League franchises, will be played between March 4 to 26 in two venues in and around Mumbai.

There were four UAE players in the auction list. But only fast bowler Mahika Gaur came up for bid. The Gujarat franchise attempted to sign her but had exhausted their quota of overseas players.

Global state-owned investor ranking by size

1.

United States

2.

China

3.

UAE

4.

Japan

5

Norway

6.

Canada

7.

Singapore

8.

Australia

9.

Saudi Arabia

10.

South Korea

The Scale for Clinical Actionability of Molecular Targets

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Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:

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THE LOWDOWN

Romeo Akbar Walter

Rating: 2/5 stars
Produced by: Dharma Productions, Azure Entertainment
Directed by: Robby Grewal
Cast: John Abraham, Mouni Roy, Jackie Shroff and Sikandar Kher 

MATCH INFO

Manchester City 3 (Silva 8' &15, Foden 33')

Birmginahm City 0

Man of the match Bernado Silva (Manchester City)

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Skoda Superb Specs

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Company profile

Date started: Founded in May 2017 and operational since April 2018

Founders: co-founder and chief executive, Doaa Aref; Dr Rasha Rady, co-founder and chief operating officer.

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: Health-tech

Size: 22 employees

Funding: Seed funding 

Investors: Flat6labs, 500 Falcons, three angel investors

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One-and-a-half out of five stars

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Pots for the Asian Qualifiers

Pot 1: Iran, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China
Pot 2: Iraq, Uzbekistan, Syria, Oman, Lebanon, Kyrgyz Republic, Vietnam, Jordan
Pot 3: Palestine, India, Bahrain, Thailand, Tajikistan, North Korea, Chinese Taipei, Philippines
Pot 4: Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Yemen, Afghanistan, Maldives, Kuwait, Malaysia
Pot 5: Indonesia, Singapore, Nepal, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Guam, Macau/Sri Lanka

Final scores

18 under: Tyrrell Hatton (ENG)

- 14: Jason Scrivener (AUS)

-13: Rory McIlroy (NIR)

-12: Rafa Cabrera Bello (ESP)

-11: David Lipsky (USA), Marc Warren (SCO)

-10: Tommy Fleetwood (ENG), Chris Paisley (ENG), Matt Wallace (ENG), Fabrizio Zanotti (PAR)

hall of shame

SUNDERLAND 2002-03

No one has ended a Premier League season quite like Sunderland. They lost each of their final 15 games, taking no points after January. They ended up with 19 in total, sacking managers Peter Reid and Howard Wilkinson and losing 3-1 to Charlton when they scored three own goals in eight minutes.

SUNDERLAND 2005-06

Until Derby came along, Sunderland’s total of 15 points was the Premier League’s record low. They made it until May and their final home game before winning at the Stadium of Light while they lost a joint record 29 of their 38 league games.

HUDDERSFIELD 2018-19

Joined Derby as the only team to be relegated in March. No striker scored until January, while only two players got more assists than goalkeeper Jonas Lossl. The mid-season appointment Jan Siewert was to end his time as Huddersfield manager with a 5.3 per cent win rate.

ASTON VILLA 2015-16

Perhaps the most inexplicably bad season, considering they signed Idrissa Gueye and Adama Traore and still only got 17 points. Villa won their first league game, but none of the next 19. They ended an abominable campaign by taking one point from the last 39 available.

FULHAM 2018-19

Terrible in different ways. Fulham’s total of 26 points is not among the lowest ever but they contrived to get relegated after spending over £100 million (Dh457m) in the transfer market. Much of it went on defenders but they only kept two clean sheets in their first 33 games.

LA LIGA: Sporting Gijon, 13 points in 1997-98.

BUNDESLIGA: Tasmania Berlin, 10 points in 1965-66

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Key findings of Jenkins report
  • Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
  • Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
  • Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
  • Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying or online bullying could take many forms such as sending unkind or rude messages to someone, socially isolating people from groups, sharing embarrassing pictures of them, or spreading rumors about them.

Cyberbullying can take place on various platforms such as messages, on social media, on group chats, or games.

Parents should watch out for behavioural changes in their children.

When children are being bullied they they may be feel embarrassed and isolated, so parents should watch out for signs of signs of depression and anxiety

Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash

Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.

Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.

Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.

Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.

Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.

Updated: February 13, 2023, 4:23 PM