Published: Jan 08, 2026, 08:24 PM (IST)
Edited: Jan 08, 2026, 08:24 PM (IST)
Former India captain Anjum Chopra believes UP Warriorz (UPW) look like the strongest team ahead of the 2026 Women’s Premier League (WPL), starting in Navi Mumbai on Friday. At the same time, Anjum cautioned that on-field performance will ultimately determine the winner of the competition on February 5 in Vadodara.
Before last year’s mega auction, UPW released all players and retained uncapped Delhi batter Shweta Sehrawat. With a new head coach in Abhishek Nayar, UPW have a new skipper in Meg Lanning, the most tactically astute captain in women’s cricket.
Apart from buying back Deepti Sharma, Sophie Ecclestone, Kranti Gaud, and Kiran Navgire, UPW have match-winners like Shikha Pandey, Deandra Dottin, Chloe Tryon, and Phoebe Litchfield in their ranks, as they aim to win the WPL for the first time.
“You would want to feel so (that all five teams are evenly matched), because obviously we’ve just won a 50-over World Cup and we have our Indian talent, which is doing well. Plus, new players have come in, and that confidence means every team is equally and evenly matched.
“Yes, in a way, they are evenly matched, as nobody’s going to pick someone as a slightly weaker team or not a good team or not a champion team. Like UP Warriorz, they out-and-out look like a gun side, and they are as well. But cricket obviously is played on the park. So you’ll wait for them to come up against maybe a Mumbai or a Gujarat and then see how they are shaping up.
“So, possibly UP on paper looks the strongest to me. But when they come onto the park, we’ll see how other teams are lining up and how everybody else is also picking their playing eleven because it’s going to be a nice challenge to get their balance right,†Anjum told IANS in an exclusive conversation on the eve of the competition’s commencement.
The shake-up of their squad and rebuilding everything from scratch has lent UPW a stronger look as compared to the 2025 season, where inconsistencies, too much dependence on certain individuals, and balance issues meant they finished at the bottom of the points table.
“You have to probably understand what those shortcomings are that the team feels are. By putting everybody back into the auction, they said, ‘let’s start afresh.’ Even if we have the luxury of buying back those players that we are releasing, that’s okay.
“But let’s take a challenge of putting everyone back in the auction and from there on, pick everything that we want as a team unit. Even those match winners and especially Deepti Sharma, after a World Cup (Player of the Tournament) performance, to go back into the auction, and apart from Shweta Sehrawat getting retained, they probably felt that nothing was going right for them, and so, let’s start everything afresh.
“How do they structure their batting lineup with India and non-India players? The way they went hard and strong for Deepti Sharma in the auction was very much evident. The fact that they said, ‘Fine, we want our bowling with Sophie Ecclestone and Deepti there, we want more fast bowlers, showed UPW’s seriousness.
“They went with the experience of Shikha Pandey, and even if they had to not go ahead for Alyssa Healy and try to get Meg Lanning into the line-up, it’s okay. So, it’s fair enough in terms of how they went in, and I think they’ll be a pretty pleased lot getting into this tournament,†elaborated Anjum.
However, Anjum pointed to one potential weakness in the UP Warriorz setup — their wicketkeeping options. With Alyssa no longer in the squad, the franchise appears to be considering Australian batter Phoebe Litchfield as a wicketkeeping option, a move Anjum views with some reservation.
They also have the makeshift option in Shweta and a specialist choice in uncapped Shipra Giri, too. “I’m not surprised if they are saying that Phoebe Litchfield can don the gloves as well. Although I think she is a great asset in the field, and if you’re putting her behind the stumps, you’re taking away that asset of a wonderful fielder.
“But because they don’t have anyone other than Shipra Giri, they’ll be looking at giving her the gloves unless they play with another uncapped cricketer. They can do that as well, and that’s the only unfamiliar territory that they are walking upon.
“Rest, everything else is defined for the UP Warriorz. But I would still say, if Phoebe has to keep, then the brilliance of her in the field not being there is probably a help for the batters,†she concluded.
( Inputs From IANS )
