The England captain admitted to finding the experience strange as her side faced Ireland in the T20 World Cup while their names were going under the hammer at the inaugural Women's Premier League auction
The experience of playing against Ireland at the T20 World Cup while the Women's Premier League auction took place was "very weird", England captain Heather Knight has admitted.
She became the last of seven English players to be picked up when Royal Challengers Bangalore signed her at the £40,000 base price as her name came round for a second time after being ignored earlier.
With a game to win at Paarl as England and Ireland met in a T20I for the first time in 11 years, their focus had to be on the game in front of them, unable to follow their individual progress and only finding out who had and hadn't been snapped up after they had eased to a four-wicket win.
"It was very weird actually," said Knight, who left it to individuals for whether they wanted to follow the auction ahead of play but chose not to track it herself and instead turned her phone onto airplane mode.
"We tried to have a team meeting before we got on the bus and all the Indians were watching it in our hotel and we had to move the meeting because there was lots of cheering and obviously they were enjoying themselves.
"It was strange; it's something we've never experienced, and you don't often get it in the men's game, I don't think, when it's on matchday, so it was all kind of trying to manage it as best we could, trying to do what individuals wanted.
Heather Knight admitted to finding the matchday experience strange (Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images)
"I'm really pleased to be involved; I wasn't really expecting to get picked up. I haven't played a huge amount of cricket the last year so really pleased and looking forward to it."
Jon Lewis, England's head coach, is also heading up the UP Warriorz franchise, where he will coach Sophie Ecclestone, who picked up for £180,000 and was one of the day's big earners. Lewis wasn't directly involved in the auction.
Nat Sciver-Brunt, though, was the biggest English winner, picking up £320,000 from Mumbai Indians, where she will be under Charlotte Edwards' stewardship. Issy Wong, not part of England's T20 World Cup squad, was also picked up by Mumbai.
Knight added that she was unsurprised by the bidding war for Sciver-Brunt. "I think she's one of the best – if not the best cricketers – in the world," she said, "and Nat probably won't like all the attention. She's very humble and she's just very, very good at cricket, I'm super-glad she's on our team."
By virtue of being in one of the early pots, Sciver-Brunt knew of her selection before play began, as did Ecclestone and Sophia Dunkley, a £60,000 acquisition at Gujarat Giants.
Alice Capsey, who made the fastest T20I half century by an England player – off 21 balls – while the auction was ongoing, was a £75,000 addition to Delhi Capitals' ranks, while Lauren Bell was a late signing at Warriorz.
Capsey had a super day all round (Ashley Vlotman/Getty Images)
It also meant, though, that Danni Wyatt, Katherine Sciver-Brunt, Amy Jones, Kate Cross, Freya Davies, Sarah Glenn, Charlie Dean, Lauren Winfield-Hill and Maia Bouchier all missed out from within England's T20 World Cup squad, while Tammy Beaumont was another whose name was read out but went unsold.
Ensuring that those players are supported in the aftermath is the next task for Knight.
"If you look purely at this WPL auction, there's winners and losers but there's so many opportunities in cricket these days," she said.
"I think other boards are going to have to catch up – the money involved now and to keep international cricket going as well, I think the best place to be is to have the international game really healthy and the domestic game thriving off each other. That's the best way forward for the game.
"I think the whole team will make sure individuals are looked after, that's really important and what we're about as a side. The value of players to the England team doesn't change because they haven't been picked up: they're still very valuable, everyone in the squad is hugely valuable to us trying to win a World Cup, so that doesn't change and they'll certainly be looked after and given space if needed to obviously deal with anything and try and refocus and get back on it."
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