MUMBAI: The Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the 2019 season is a month away and teams seem to be geared up for the event by announcing its player retentions. The franchises’ decisions seem to be heavy influenced around the scheduling of the tournament which is reported to begin on 23 March next year due to the Lok Sabha elections in India.
Defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) made England pacer Mark Wood (worth Rs. 15 million per season) and the Indian duo of Kanishk Seth and Kshitiz Sharma their casualties as the franchise has retained the rest of the 23-man squad instrumental in winning the IPL 2018 title. It will have a salary cap of Rs. 84 million available at the auction.
CSK retentions: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Faf du Plessis, M Vijay, Shane Watson, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, David Willey, Dwayne Bravo, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu, Sam Billings, Harbhajan Singh, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Lungi Ngidi, Imran Tahir, Karn Sharma, Dhruv Shorey, N Jagadeesan, Shardul Thakur, Monu Kumar, Chaitanya Bishnoi
The team CSK defeated in the 2018 final, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have made three massive decisions amidst retaining 18 players. Recently, the franchise traded the dashing Indian opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan to Delhi Daredevils. It has also opted to release India’s Test wicketkeeper batsman Wriddhiman Saha.
However, it will retain David Warner, the Australian opening batsman and former captain of the franchise, who is in the eighth month of his one-year ban imposed by Cricket Australia. SRH will have a salary cap of Rs. 97 million available.
SRH retentions: David Warner, Yusuf Pathan, Rashid Khan, Shakib Al Hasan, Billy Stanlake, Kane Williamson, Mohammad Nabi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, Basil Thampi, Deepak Hooda
The Reliance-owned Mumbai Indians (MI) could not make it to the playoffs last season but have gone into action to make amends right away even before announcing their 18 men retained. To strengthen their top order, MI bagged South African opening batsman Quinton de Kock’s services from Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) worth his price of Rs. 27 million last auction.
In order to recover the costs, the franchise offloaded Sri Lankan spinner Akila Dananjaya and Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman. South Africa’s JP Duminy and India’s Saurabh Tiwary are two other batsmen released. Another foreign player to miss out playing for MI this season is Australian fast bowler Pat Cummins who was worth Rs. 54 million.
However, it opens up the franchise’s salary purse at this year’s auction which amounts to Rs. 111.5 million.
MI retentions: Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Evin Lewis, Kieron Pollard, Ben Cutting, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne, Jason Behrendorff
The Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore also have an exodus of players for the 2019 season such as de Kock, Brendon McCullum, Chris Woakes, Mandeep Singh and Corey Anderson. Sarfraz Khan, who was surprisingly retained by RCB in the last auction, has also been released. The franchise traded Mandeep and bought Australian all-rounder Marcus Stoinis in a straight swap. These developments have given RCB a salary cap of Rs. 181.5 million to add to their existing 14-man squad.
RCB retentions: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Moeen Ali, Colin de Grandhomme, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kulwant Khejroliya, Nathan Coulter-Nile
Delhi Daredevils (DD) have made headlines even before announcing its retentions, indulging in a cash and trade deal with SRH. It gained Shikhar Dhawan but had to pay Rs. 17.5 million extra to the IPL 2018 finalists as well as hand them three upcoming Indian players namely Shahbaz Nadeem, Vijay Shankar and Abhishek Sharma.
The other big players to miss out this season are Gautam Gambhir, Glenn Maxwell, Dan Christian, Jason Roy and Mohammad Shami following DD’s poor show in the IPL 2018. However, it has retained 14 players and will have Rs. 255 million to revamp their squad for 2019.
DD retentions: Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Rishabh Pant, Manjot Kalra, Colin Munro, Chris Morris, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Tewatia, Harshal Patel, Amit Mishra, Kagiso Rabada, Trent Boult, Sandeep Lamichhane, Avesh Khan
Many were surprised by Kolkata Knight Riders’ playoffs-clinching performance last season, considering their squad looked relatively weak on paper. Their third-place finish sees them retain 13 players ahead of the auction. However, it decided to end Australian pacer Mitchell Starc’s contract unceremoniously while England’s upcoming all-rounder Tom Curran is amongst the other seven players KKR has released.
Due to their splurge in their last auction and Starc’s exit, KKR will have Rs. 152 million to contend with this time.
KKR retentions: Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Shubman Gill, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shivam Mavi, Kuldeep Yadav, Piyush Chawla, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Prasidh Krishna
Kings XI Punjab’s sudden downslide in fortunes in the IPL 2018 saw them fail to make the playoffs despite having an impressive squad. As a result, the team will make wholesale changes to it this season as it has retained just nine players besides buying back Mandeep Singh from RCB. Indian legend Yuvraj Singh and Australia’s ODI and T20I captain Aaron Finch are the big names Punjab has decided to release into the auction pool this time.
Punjab are expected to go all out this year with Rs. 362 million in their kitty.
KXIP retentions: Chris Gayle, David Miller, Karun Nair, Mayank Agarwal, KL Rahul, R Ashwin, Ankit Rajpoot, Andrew Tye, Mujeeb ur Rahman
Rajasthan Royals will be retaining 16 players despite an underwhelming IPL 2018. The former captain of the franchise and the Australian team, Steven Smith is amongst one of them although he is serving a one-year ban at present.
The Royals have decided to release six players, one of them being Indian pacer Jaydev Unadkat who was purchased last season for a whopping Rs. 115 million. Rajasthan have the comfort of having Rs. 209.5 million in their purse for the upcoming auction.
RR retentions: Steven Smith, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer, Ish Sodhi, Ajinkya Rahane, K Gowtham, Sanju Samson, Shreyas Gopal, Aryaman Birla, S Midhun, Prashant Chopra, Stuart Binny, Rahul Tripathi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Mahipal Lomror
