WPL 2026: Harmanpreet Kaur To Smriti Mandhana — A Look At All The Captains Of This Edition

The Women's Premier League (WPL) 2026 commences this week. This season the league's matches will be played at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai and Baroda Cricket Association Stadium in Vadodra.

The league will run from Jan. 9 to Feb. 5 and will see 22 matches being played across the two venues.

Ahead of the season, the five teams reshuffled their packs during the WPL auction. While Mumbai Indians (MI) will be looking to extend their championship record by winning their third WPL crown this year, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) will be aiming to repeat their 2024 feat when they won the league for the first time.

Delhi Capitals (DC) will be desperate to shed their moniker of being the 'bridesmaid' of the league. The team has qualified for all the three finals contested so far, but lost all of them as well.

UP Warriorz and Gujarat Giants have one single point to prove, they are not just the teams to make up numbers and they should be taken seriously.

All the teams have the same goal for the season and that is to win the WPL title. They are all led some of the best players the women's game has to offer. They are the people in-charge of steering their respective teams towards their goal. Here is a look at the five skippers who are in-charge of the teams.

Harmanpreet Kaur has been Mumbai Indians' skipper since the league's inception in 2023. By winning the WPL twice with MI, Harmanpreet holds the distinguished feat of being the most decorated captain in the league's history.

She will head into the 2026 season as the defending champion. The spotlight will shine doubly bright on the 36-year-old after she guided India to its maiden ODI World Cup title last year.

Primarily a batter, Harmanpreet has played 27 WPL matches and scored 851 runs at an average of 40.52 and strike rate of 143.5.

Smriti Mandhana is the only captain, other than Harmanpreet, who has tasted success in the WPL. Mandhana lifted the WPL trophy when she guided RCB to its maiden title win in 2024.

She is one of the best batters in women's white-ball cricket. The left-handed opener had a remarkable run with the bat in 2025 and she will be looking to replicate that form in the upcoming season.

Mandhana has featured in 26 WPL matches, all for RCB, and amassed 646 runs at an average of 24.84 and strike rate of 128.68.

Jemimah Rodrigues is the new captain of DC. The 25-year-old was appointed as the captain after the team released Meg Lanning from the squad ahead of the auction.

Rodrigues, who hails from Mumbai, now has task of guiding Delhi to take the decisive step of winning the title.

She demonstrated her mettle in the ODI World Cup semifinal when she slammed a hundred against Australia that helped India beat the then defending champions.

A DC player through and through, Rodrigues has scored 507 runs from 27 matches an an average of 28.16 and a strike rate of 139.66.

After being released by DC, Lanning was bought by UP Warriorz in the auction for Rs 1.9 crore. She was then named captain.

Warriorz will be banking on Lanning's wealth of experience. She has lifted seven World Cups with Australia, two ODI World Cups and and five T20 World Cups.

Before joining Warriroz, Lanning played 27 matches for Delhi Capitals and scored 952 runs at an average of 39.66 and strike rate of 127.1.

Ashleigh Gardner has been promoted as the captain of Gujarat Giants. She was one of only two players that Gujarat Giants retained ahead of the auction, the other being Beth Mooney.

The 28-year-old is an all-rounder as she bats in the middle order and bowls off-breaks. A winner of three T20 Women’s World Cup with Australia, Garnder has always been a Gujarat Giants player. She has played 25 matches, scored 567 runs and picked 25 wickets.