WPL 2027 Auction: Michael Klinger confident Gujarat Giants has the squad to clinch title

Michael Klinger was last in Kochi in 2011 for the IPL. | Photo Credit: R.K. Nithin

The last time Michael Klinger came to Kochi, he was as a player in the IPL. A decade and a half later, he is back, as the coach of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) franchise Gujarat Giants.

The Aussie, who played three T20Is and was a run machine in domestic cricket Down Under, will fly back to Melbourne in a happy frame of mind, having got what he wanted from Wednesday’s mini auction.

G. Kamalini was the player he was the most keen on. And the Giants got her for her base price of Rs. 40 lakh. He is also glad that he could rope in Ireland’s Orla Prendergast.

“We had a really good squad before the auction and had a lot of bases covered, but to top up with some players who can easily play in the starting eleven for us was our main aim,” Klinger told Sportstar on Thursday. “So now we have got some difficult decisions to make come WPL time. But they are good problems.”

Having made the playoffs in the last two editions, Klinger believes he has the team that could go all the way this time. “We have a mix of experienced players and youngsters,” he said. “It is great to have champion players like Beth Mooney, Ashleigh Gardner and Sophie Devine.”

There are exciting Indian talents like Yastika Bhatia. “I was very happy to see Yastika score that hundred for India in the Lord’s Test on her comeback after injury,” he says. “I think she could play in the Indian T20 team too, purely as a batter.”

Looking back to his own career as a prolific batter, he says it is alright that he could only play three matches for Australia, in which he made 38, 43 and 62, against Sri Lanka in 2017. He amassed 24,729 runs across First Class, List A and T20s.

At the IPL, he played for Kochi Tuskers, which existed for just that one season in 2011.