BCCI Confirms WPL Season 5 Auction Date and Venues

The Women’s Premier League’s next big piece has dropped into place.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has confirmed to all five WPL franchises that the Season 5 auction will be staged on October 28 in Kochi, with formal communication landing in team inboxes on Wednesday (September 16). The calendar is now clear. The scramble begins.

Retention race on a tight clock

Franchises have been handed a short, sharp deadline. They have until September 28 to finalise which players stay and which are released back into the pool.

Each squad can carry a maximum of 18 players, with no more than six overseas names. The salary cap for this cycle has been fixed at INR 15 crore, a figure that will force teams to weigh star power against depth, loyalty against flexibility.

Some high-profile calls are inevitable. With only 18 slots and a hard cap, several familiar faces could find themselves back under the hammer in Kochi.

Mumbai and Vadodara set to host again

On the venue front, the league is heading for familiar territory. The BCCI is understood to have zeroed in on Mumbai and Vadodara as hosts for Season 5, which is expected to run in the January-February window, mirroring last season’s slot.

The CCI in Mumbai and the Kotambi Stadium in Vadodara have been identified as the definitive venues. Season 4 unfolded across these same grounds, with the final played in the Gujarat city on February 5. The template worked, and the board appears ready to lean on it again.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who lifted the trophy last season, will therefore likely defend their crown on pitches they already know well.

Varanasi idea on hold

There had been a flicker of intrigue around Varanasi. With a new stadium coming up, suggestions surfaced about taking a slice of the WPL there to tap into a fresh market and a new atmosphere.

For now, that remains little more than an idea.

Sources around the WPL set-up indicate that any move to Varanasi hinges entirely on the stadium’s readiness. The venue must first host domestic matches and prove it can handle the demands of top-tier cricket. At this stage, staging WPL fixtures there is viewed as a remote possibility rather than an imminent expansion.

All eyes on Kochi

So the league’s immediate future looks settled: auction in Kochi, a January-February season, Mumbai and Vadodara as the stage, and Royal Challengers Bengaluru as the team everyone is chasing.

Between now and September 28, though, the real intrigue lies behind closed doors in franchise offices. Who gets retained, who is cut loose, and who walks into Kochi as the most dangerous buyer in the room?