WPL said no to Tanisha Singh — she answered with 119 off 47 balls and a world record

The WPL 2027 auction in Kochi lasted a few hours. For Tanisha Singh, it lasted about ten seconds. Her name flashed on the screen at a base price of Rs 10 lakh. Five franchises looked at it. Five franchises moved on. She was 22 years old, an India A opener, a DPL star, and, as of Wednesday evening, officially unwanted.

She did not answer her parents' calls that night. She did not answer her friends' calls. She sat with the silence of it until her physio, Surya, told her what everyone tells you in those moments: everything will be fine.

Less than 24 hours later, Tanisha Singh walked out to open the batting for Delhi against Hyderabad in the Senior Women's T20 Trophy at MCA Ground 2 in Pune. She hit the first two balls she faced for four. Then she did not stop hitting.

After Delhi lost Vanshika Lila in the second over, Tanisha found Priya Punia at the other end. What followed was a 160-run second-wicket stand off just 66 balls — the kind of partnership that rewrites a scorecard while you are still looking at the powerplay graphic.

The striking detail: they barely spoke. Tanisha described a partnership built entirely on instinct. Punia was in her zone. Tanisha was in hers. Fist bumps and bat taps replaced conversation. When Tanisha reached fifty, Punia had to remind her to acknowledge the dugout.

Punia herself hammered 59 off 28 balls before falling, and Shweta Sehrawat then blasted 26 off 8 deliveries — including three sixes — to push Delhi past 200. But this was Tanisha's show. She was bowled by G Trisha in the 15th over with the total on 230/4, having hit 25 fours and a six in an innings where 89% of her runs came from boundaries.

Tanisha's 38-ball century puts her in genuinely rarefied company. Only Kiran Navgire (34 balls, Maharashtra vs Punjab) and Sophie Devine (36 balls, Wellington vs Otago) have reached three figures faster in any women's T20 match — international or domestic. Tanisha now shares the third-fastest mark with Deandra Dottin, who hit a 38-ball ton for the West Indies against South Africa in 2010.

Delhi's 262/6 sits 11th on the all-time list of women's T20 totals — the ten above it are all internationals, headed by Argentina's eye-watering 427/1 against Chile. It is the highest domestic women's T20 total ever, surpassing Goa's 257/2 from six years ago.

None of this was supposed to happen to a player the WPL did not want.

Tanisha did not dodge the question about the auction. She went straight at it. Three or four years she has been putting her name in the WPL pool, enduring trials, watching the screen. Three or four times, five franchises have collectively decided she is not worth Rs 10 lakh.

She credits her support network for pulling her out of the low. Her physio. Her coaches Dishant Yagnik, Surjeet Sir, Ajay Verma. Her parents, whose calls she eventually returned. And then she reframed the whole thing with a clarity that belied her 23 years.

The 119 was not a fluke bolted onto a mediocre year. Tanisha toured England with India A in July and scored a half-century in the third one-dayer. She was the third-highest run-scorer in the 2026 Delhi Premier League with 206 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of 117. Against Australia A in September, she accumulated 120 runs across three ODIs — including a fifty in the chase of 363 — and scored 92 in the only unofficial Test.

This is a player with consistent output at the A-team level, match awareness in high-pressure chases, and now a T20 century that rewrote the record books. The WPL franchises will see her name again in the next auction cycle. The question is whether India's selectors get there first.

There is a particular kind of athlete who takes a rejection and lets it sit inside them like a coal. Not as bitterness — Tanisha was too measured for that — but as fuel. She described the 119 almost in bewilderment, as if she was watching herself from outside the crease.

When the match ended, Delhi's match referee told her they had broken the record. She had not even known.

Delhi have not won the Senior Women's T20 Trophy before. They won the 50-over equivalent last year, and Tanisha says the T20 title is the immediate target. Beyond that, an India cap is the north star she keeps coming back to.

Twenty-four hours is nothing in cricket. It is also everything. On Wednesday in Kochi, Tanisha Singh was an unwanted name on an auctioneer's screen. On Thursday in Pune, she was the owner of the joint third-fastest century in women's T20 history and the architect of the highest domestic total ever recorded. Five WPL franchises will have a long time to think about the player they passed on at ten lakh.