In total, 77 Indians played in the first three seasons of the WPL, and many of them have not played for the national team. But to understand Pandey’s story and its unusualness, we have to go back a few years.
Fifteen months later, India brought in Pandey just ahead of the 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup but her return did not feature in all six matches.
In the inaugural WPL auction, which took place during that T20 World Cup, Delhi Capitals (DC) and Gujarat Giants bid for him and DC bought him for Rs 60 lakh; Rs 20 lakh more than his base price.
When he started playing for India, Pandey was primarily seen as a new-ball bowler. But during the last three WPL seasons, against top international batsmen, she has emerged as a much bigger player. Ten of his 30 wickets in the tournament were reward for his work in the death overs (17–20). No fast bowler has taken more wickets during this phase.
It is this versatility that both UP Warriors (UPW) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) recognized when they entered into a bidding war for 36-year-old Pandey in the WPL 2026 auction. UPW eventually acquired him for Rs 2.4 crore; Six times his base price of Rs 40 lakh. RCB had made their last bid for Rs 2.2 crore, while they only had Rs 2.85 crore available and eight slots to fill, which says a lot.
“Ever since I saw her, which is 2007-08 when we played Under-19, even when you didn’t have videos of domestic opposition players and other things, she would still keep notes of the opposition batsmen or remember really specific things. She also understands what her skills and strengths are, and sees what bowlers like her do against the batsmen she is going to face. Whether she is playing international cricket or domestic cricket, it is always That’s one of the things that has persisted about him outside.
“And then there’s this whole thing that she is one of the only Indian seamers who can bowl in all three phases of the game. From being primarily a new-ball bowler to developing her skills in the death and middle phases, changing pace, working on her yorkers, building confidence in her bouncers – I think she always had that delivery but she was very reluctant to use it. A lot of mental and tactical work has always kept her slightly ahead.”
Only eight bowlers in the WPL have taken five or more wickets at each stage of an innings. Pandey is in that group. He has also taken the combined maximum number of wickets in the first two overs of a WPL innings. He has bowled the first over four times and taken one wicket, and has bowled the second over 15 times and taken four wickets. Nat Sciver-Brunt and Marizanne Kapp have also taken five wickets each in the first two overs of the innings, but have bowled more, 22 and 24 times respectively.
Pandey has not taken a wicket in just seven of his 27 WPL innings, which highlights how consistent a threat he is. He has established a 74.1% chance of achieving success for his team. Among Indian bowlers, only Kashvi Gautam, with a smaller sample size (9 matches), outperforms him (77.8%) in the overall group of 51 who have bowled at least five innings.
“Chiku (Pandey) will often get you success in his first spell,” says Biju George, former fielding coach of India and assistant coach of Trinbago Knight Riders in the WCPL. Abhishek said, “He has information about every player, you talk to him about any player in world cricket, he is a walking encyclopedia.” [Nayar, UPW head coach] Will be extra happy to get it. She always leads the discussion in team meetings, gives her 150%, and is a very safe fielder. He is an asset to any team. He is one of the best, hard-working cricketers I have ever seen.
“She wants to compete with the best and be the best.”
The drive to improve has taken Pandey from club cricket with Wynnum Manly in Queensland to Brisbane Heat in the WBBL, Canterbury Magicians in the Super Smash and TKR in the WCPL. This has also changed his domestic side; She moved to Baroda ahead of the 2024–25 season after playing for Goa for almost 18 years.
“She has always been clear that she will strive to be the best player she can be, no matter what level she is playing at,” says Upendran. “As someone who is naturally very ambitious, of course, she still hopes to play for the country. But I think what you see with her right now is that she has found a certain amount of peace in playing the game and trying to get better at her craft.
“Baroda are a fairly young team, but they have always performed above their weight. They have always been a spin-heavy team. I think she saw it as an opportunity to ply her trade in a team that is developing, in a team that is very competitive but also in a team where she will not be the only central figure. With Goa, for many, many years, people looked up to her, and to some extent Sunanda too. [Yetrekar]As the only threat. So it takes a lot of hard work to carry the burden of a domestic team for almost a decade or maybe even longer.”
Playing with more freedom gave Pandey a chance to further highlight his batting abilities. From the lower middle order, she scored 127 runs (third highest for Baroda) at a strike rate of 154.87 (seventh best in the competition) in six innings in the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy.
Another advantage of Pandey’s presence is his guidance. Having gained wide experience at various levels across the world, she never shy away from interacting with the youth or even her peers.
“Shikha has started helping the young players develop. Like even in the WPL set-up with DC, when VJ Joshita was part of the net bowling group, there was a lot of interaction between them,” says Upendran. “Shikha would watch her bowling and they would talk about things that she could improve on, whether it was tactical or technical things, whether it was training and things that she would need to focus on to get better or play at a higher level.
“If she sees someone talking about cricket, she tries and joins the conversation. Even during her training in Queensland, she talked about how she had chats with Grace Harris, Georgia Redmayne and even Grace Parsons, who has not played international cricket. Anyone who is willing to talk about cricket, you will find Shikha there talking to them about cricket.”
Lanning agrees. “I think she will be able to lead our fast bowling attack and provide some real good guidance for those bowlers and help me in that role as well. She has shown that she is a proven performer throughout the innings. The other thing is that she can open the bowling, she can bowl in the middle, and she can finish in the death overs. So to have someone like that in your team as a captain, it makes my job a little bit easier.”
Pandey is going to play in WPL 2026 for a team that has not reached the playoffs since the inaugural season. If she can help UPW change that narrative, the India dream can become a reality again. Especially when the 2026 T20 World Cup is in England, where fast bowlers can play an important role.
Data input by Deep Gadhiya
S Sudarshan is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @sudarshan7