Wednesday (January 20) was the final day for all the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises to submit their list of players who were retained and released ahead of the mini-auction which is set to take place on February 11.
Rajasthan Royals made the biggest decision by not retaining captain Steve Smith and replacing him as skipper with young Indian wicket-keeper batsman Sanju Samson. Australian ODI and T20 captain Aaron Finch was among a host of overseas players offloaded by Royal Challengers Bangalore, while Kings XI Punjab also decided to clean their shop and now have a purse of over 53 crore with them.
Defending champions Mumbai Indians parted ways with the legendary Lasith Malinga and a few other overseas pacers. Chennai Super Kings also decided against renewing contracts of Harbhajan Singh and Kedar Jadhav, although they retained Suresh Raina.
Here is the full list of players retained and released by all eight franchises.
Mumbai Indians: Players retained – Batsmen: Rohit Sharma, Quinton de Kock (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan (WK), Chris Lynn, Anmolpreet Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, Aditya Tare (WK); All-rounders: Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Krunal Pandya, Anukul Roy; Bowlers: Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, Rahul Chahar, Jayant Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Mohsin Khan
Released players: Lasith Malinga, Mitch McClenaghan, James Pattinson, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Sherfane Rutherford, Prince Balwant Rai, Digivijay Deshmukh
Chennai Super Kings: Players retained – N Jagadeesan, R Gaikwad, KM Asif, R Jadeja, MS Dhoni, J Hazlewood, K Sharma, A Rayudu, S Raina, I Tahir, D Chahar, Faf du Plessis, S Thakur, M Santner, D Bravo, L Ngidi, S Curran, S Kishore.
Released players: Harbhajan Singh, Kedar Jadhav, Piyush Chawla, Shane Watson, Murali Vijay, Monu Singh
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Players retained – Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Devdutt Padikkal, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa, Josh Philippe, Shahbaz Ahmed and Pavan Deshpande.
Released players: Aaron Finch, Chris Morris, Isuru Udana, Moeen Ali, Pawan Negi, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Shivam Dube, Dale Steyn, Parthiv Patel and Umesh Yadav.
Rajasthan Royals: Players retained – Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Rahul Tewatia, Mahipal Lomror, Kartik Tyagi, Andrew Tye, Jaydev Unadkat, Mayank Markande, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, David Miller, Manan Vohra, Robin Uthappa.
Released players: Steve Smith, Ankit Rajpoot, Oshane Thomas, Akash Singh, Varun Aaron, Tom Curran, Anirudha Joshi, Shashank Singh.
Delhi Capitals: Players retained – Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, R Ashwin, Lalit Yadav, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Pravin Dubey, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Marcus Stoinis, Shimron Hetmyer, Chris Woakes, Daniel Sams.
Released players: Mohit Sharma, Tushar Deshpande, Keemo Paul, Sandeep Lamichhane, Alex Carey, Jason Roy.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Players retained – Eoin Morgan, Dinesh Karthik, Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Rinku Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Pat Cummins, Prasidh Krishna, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Varun Chakaravarthy, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Tim Seifert.
Released players: Tom Banton, Chris Green, Nikhil Naik, Siddharth M and Siddhesh Lad
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Players retained – David Warner (c), Abhishek Sharma, Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jonny Bairstow, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Vijay Shankar, Wriddhiman Saha, Abdul Samad, Mitchell Marsh, Jason Holder, Priyam Garg, Virat Singh
Released players: Sanjay Yadav, B Sandeep, Billy Stanlake, Fabian Allen, Yarra Prithviraj
Kings XI Punjab: Players retained – KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Mayank Agarwal, Nicholas Pooran, Mandeep Singh, Sarfaraz Khan, Deepak Hooda, Prabhsimran Singh, Mohammed Shami, Chris Jordan, Darshan Nalkande, Ravi Bishnoi, Murugan Ashwin, Arshdeep Singh, Harpreet Brar, Ishan Porel
Released players: Glenn Maxwell, Karun Nair, Hardus Viljoen, Jagadeesha Suchith, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Sheldon Cottrell, Jimmy Neesham, Krishnappa Gowtham, Tajinder Singh.
IPL Mini-Auction 2021 Remaining Purse:
Chennai Super Kings – Rs 22.9 crore
Kings XI Punjab – Rs 53.2 crore
Rajasthan Royals – Rs 34.85 crore
Sunrisers Hyderabad – Rs 10.75 crore
Delhi Capitals – Rs 9 crore
Kolkata Knight Riders – Rs 10.85 crore
Royal Challengers Bangalore – Rs 35.7 crore
Mumbai Indians – Rs 15.35 crore
