New Delhi: Indian Premier League (IPL) retention lists were submitted by all 10 franchises on Thursday. A total of 46 players were retained across all the teams with Sunrisers Hyderabad’s offer to South African wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen was the most expensive deal seen in the player retentions.
There were some shocking releases as well with as many as five captains were released from the squads of their respective franchises. Indian wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant wasn’t retained by the Delhi Capitals, thus ending their nine-year stint altogether.
The Capitals retained Axar Patel (16.5 crore), Kuldeep Yadav (INR 13.25 crore), Tristan Stubbs (10 crore), and Abhishek Porel (INR 4 crore) as their choice of retentions before the mega auction later in the year.
Pant will be one of the most demanding players in the mega auction this time around, forcing franchises to break bank for his valuable services. One of the official of an IPL franchise is confident that the stylish wicketkeeper will comfortably fetch bids more than INR 20 crore during the two-day event, which is yet to be officially announced.
“Rishabh’s real bidding will start from Rs 20 crore onwards. There will be three teams who can afford to bid big for him. One is Punjab Kings with Rs 110.5 crore in its kitty. They need a new captain and a brand. RCB has Rs 83 crore and LSG have Rs 69 crore and they also need a new captain,” a top official of a franchise told news agency PTI.
“Gujarat Titans don’t need a captain but they also have Rs 69 crore. DC has Rs 73 crore but why would they go for someone they released under acrimonious circumstances,” he added.
Shreyas Iyer on radar of Delhi Capitals?
Shreyas Iyer was another IPL captain released by Kolkata Knight Riders, and that too after winning the title in the previous season. Iyer first assumed captaincy at Delhi Darevils (now Capitals) in 2018. He was released by the franchise ahead of IPL 2022 mega auction.
The Mumbai-born batter was sold to KKR for a whopping sum of INR 12.25 crore. Delhi Capitals could be one of the front-runners to shell out big money to rope in Iyer as their new captain.
“GMR, one of the co-owners have great faith in Iyer. He has been promised captaincy and if need be, DC with their handsome auction purse of nearly Rs 75 crore, can go north of Rs 20 crore. There won’t be too many teams that would want Iyer the T20 batter but just to ensure DC spends a bomb on a player, they might engage in a bidding war for Iyer,” another IPL franchise official said, as quoted by news agency PTI.
