UP Warriorz director of cricket, Kshemal Waingankar, stated it’s “too early to decide” who will lead the team in the upcoming WPL season. The franchise bought Deepti Sharma for INR 3.2 crore using their RTM card, making her the joint second-most expensive player in WPL history. They also added Meg Lanning for INR 1.9 crore.

“We’ll discuss that, but it’s too early to say. It will depend on how the squad shapes up, and we’ll need to have a conversation. We’ll talk to Deepti, assess the leadership dynamics, and we haven’t finalised that yet,” he said.

“We definitely anticipated the price to be around what we saw. As you can tell, we also aimed for Amelia Kerr, and her price went up to three crores. It’s the premium you pay for a high-quality spin-bowling all-rounder, and there was no question that we wanted her back,” Waingankar added.

When asked why Deepti wasn’t retained earlier, Waingankar mentioned, “There were various factors in the auction and retention process. With Abhishek now at the helm, we wanted to give him a clean slate to define his vision and build the squad as he wants.”

“We were confident from the start that we could bring Deepti back and we’re thrilled to have her with us again. In addition, we’ve also managed to bring Sophie back and add a leader like Meg Lanning to the squad. So far, everything has gone well.”