WPL 2027: UP Warriorz and MI Have 7 Slots, ₹2.65 Crore Apart

UP Warriorz and MI: seven auction places, different budgets

UP Warriorz and Mumbai Indians each have seven open places ahead of the WPL 2027 player auction, but their remaining purses differ by ₹2.65 crore. The BCCI/WPL retention announcement of 28 September gives UP Warriorz ₹3.65 crore and Mumbai Indians ₹1 crore. Both teams still have to complete their squads at the auction scheduled for 28 October in Kochi. These are announced starting positions, not winning bids, player transfers or new league news from 1 October.

UP Warriorz have the league's largest remaining purse; MI have the smallest. The same number of places therefore describes different budget constraints, while the teams also have a different number of overseas openings. For another check on the figures, Sportstar's five-team table independently reproduces the BCCI/WPL position. Neither table names a future auction purchase.

What the WPL 2027 retention announcement actually says

The five franchises retained 63 players, including 23 overseas players, at the end of the 28 September retention window. The league lists 27 places still open, seven of them overseas. A retained player forms part of a team's pre-auction core; an open place is not a signing. A released name does not reveal the next employer, the winning bid or a January playing eleven. The official lists do not replace a later auction announcement or team sheet.

Search interest rose around that dated event. In a Google Trends India seven-day check for “wpl” on 1 October, the related Rising query “wpl retention 2027” was +500%. Trends measures sampled, relative growth against an earlier comparison period—not total searches, a promise of traffic or an October 1 breaking update. The broad-term peak shown on 28 September had already eased. This article explains what the published figures mean rather than recycling a headline as though retention happened again today.

In particular, a retention list is not a finished squad. The BCCI/WPL season notice schedules its player auction for 28 October 2026 at Grand Hyatt Kochi. After that event, each team's confirmed purchases and any later official squad changes should be checked against new league or club statements. A prediction about a possible target belongs in a clearly labelled opinion piece, not in a confirmed-retentions list.

How each team's auction position differs

UP Warriorz: The official retained group of 11 includes Deepti Sharma, Meg Lanning, Phoebe Litchfield and Sophie Ecclestone. Its seven available places include two overseas slots, with ₹3.65 crore left. The release list has nine names, but that total needs context: ESPNcricinfo explains that Amy Jones and Charli Knott had previously joined as replacements for Phoebe Litchfield and Tara Norris. Their presence among releases should not be turned into a claim about who will replace whom in 2027.

Mumbai Indians: The retained group of 11 includes Harmanpreet Kaur, Amelia Kerr, Hayley Matthews and Natalie Sciver-Brunt. MI also have seven open places, but one overseas opening and ₹1 crore remaining. Having the same vacancy count as UP Warriorz does not give MI the same spending power or foreign-player flexibility. It also does not establish that either team must sign seven identical types of player.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: The club retained 13, including Smriti Mandhana and Ellyse Perry. It has five vacant places, two overseas openings and ₹1.15 crore left. ESPNcricinfo reports that RCB released Grace Harris and Linsey Smith; no other team's acquisition of either player is confirmed by that release. Delhi Capitals retained 13 with five places open, one overseas opening and ₹1.10 crore left. Gujarat Giants retained 15 with three places open, one overseas opening and ₹1.25 crore left. All of these are pre-auction figures from the league's published table.

What happens next—and what cannot yet be known

The next scheduled checkpoint is the 28 October 2026 WPL player auction in Kochi. The purse figures set financial limits on future squad building; the open slots set roster capacity. Neither number shows an offer already made, a player's availability, a club's auction priority or how a side will perform next season. UP Warriorz's ₹2.65-crore advantage over MI for the same number of vacancies is a comparison of the announced balances, not a forecast of results.

The league's season-date announcement gives a 14 January–7 February 2027 playing window. That notice does not publish a complete 2027 match-by-match fixture list. A season window, a retained core and a future auction are three separate facts. Readers should return to the official WPL releases for auction-list, final-squad and fixture updates rather than treating a 2026 schedule, a speculative team list or this article as a live scoreboard.

WPL 2027 auction FAQs and sources