Youngsters go for glory as WPL kicks off with Mumbai-Delhi face-off

The WPL 2024 beginning on Friday with a highprofile match between defending champions Mumbai Indians and runnersup Delhi Capitals will be about meeting its existential purpose of giving a wider platform to promising homegrown talentsThe foreign stars glittered brightly in the inaugural edition held in Mumbai and the Indians will be hoping to hog some of the limelight this year as the tournament takes a multicity format shape with New Delhi being the other host cityWhile Capitals skipper Meg Lanning who has now retired from international cricket took the Orange Cap last year for the highest rungetter the Purple Cap went to Hayley Matthews of Mumbai for taking 16 wicketsAmid this surge of overseas players the Indian cricketers generally struggled for consistency and impact in the previous year but now some of the young domestic stars will eye the WPL 2024 with genuine hopeLets take Shreyanka Patil of Royal Challengers Bangalore as a case in point During WPL 2023 she was a wideeyed young cricketer who was awestruck to rub shoulders with some of the finest names in womens cricketWhatrsquos your name Harman MIvDC is all the skipper can think ofOneFamily AaliRe MumbaiIndians TATAWPL pictwittercomdViWDZJYKtmdash Mumbai Indians mipaltan February 22 2024She played seven matches but the spotlight was understandably on players such as Smriti Mandhana or Ellyse Perry or Sophie DevineBut in the last 10 months or so Patil has built a place of her own She earned her maiden India cap in both Test and ODIs in December last year besides making her mark in the Caribbean Premier League for the Guyana Amazon WarriorsIn this interim the 21yearold has also added more arrows to her quiver in the form of powerhitting at the death oversTitas Sadhu of Delhi Capitals offers a similar story Sadhu did not get a single game despite being in the squad but this year the West Bengal player has a changed profileAfter making her India debut in the Hangzhou Asian Games against Bangladesh the 19yearold has grown in statureAlso Read Adapting to different conditions will be key to retaining WPL title Harmanpreet KaurThe medium pacers 4163 spell helped India beat Sri Lanka in the Asian Games final while defending a meagre target of 117Sadhu proved that that performance was no flash in the pan when she grabbed four for 17 against Australia in Mumbai last month powering India to a rare T20I win over the AussiesSo it will be hard for Delhi management to overlook her claim to be in the starting eleven against Mumbai or at least in a few subsequent matchesThe Capitals also have in their ranks a talent who is eager to stamp her mark in the WPL Minnu ManiThe Kerala cricketer is the first player from her state to sign a WPL contract but her participation last year was limited to just three matches and two innings to batBut since then Minnu has appeared in four WT20Is for India and has shown promise with her crafty offbreak bowlingWhile it is certain that her brand of bowling will be put to test at the Chinnaswamy Stadium Minnu has a big chance to brave the odds and make a mighty impression which only adds more torque to her forward journeyBut then the tournament is not just about contenders it is also about the trailblazersThe outings of Harmanpreet Kaur who will have to tame expectations that are generally placed on the title holders Mandhana who has the onerous task of landing RCB a maiden title across WPL and IPL and the UP Warriorz duo of Alyssa Healy and Chamari Athapaththu two of the best women batters in contemporary game will be closely watchedThen there are the second line of players like Jemimah Rodrigues Delhi and Deepti Sharma UP who come with the Hundred and Big Bash experience behind themBut they could not set the field ablaze in WPL 1 and they would want to write a fresh storyline this time So there are reputations to be protected and new ones to be made and that could just fuel womens crickets own Le Mans for the next fortnightWith agency inputs