IPL 2025 Retention Highlights: Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul Enter Auction; Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni Retained For...

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Mo Bobat, RCB Director of Cricket, said, “We’re all too aware of the need to establish a strong Indian core to our team going into the 2025 IPL season, and we feel that our retention decisions are a significant step in the right direction. It’s great to continue Virat’s lengthy association with RCB, I’m confident that a new group of players will benefit hugely from his inspirational and infectious energy, and his commitment to high standards. It’s also great to secure both Rajat and Yash, two excellent players that offer relatively unique skills and abilities. In Yash’s case, as an uncapped player, he also represents outstanding financial value. It’s always sad to release players, given the strength of relationships that are built and the many shared achievements and memories, and I wish all departing players well. As for us, we now commence our auction preparations having retained top Indian talent, whilst also giving ourselves both options and flexibility with our three remaining RTMs, and a healthy available purse. It should be fun!”

Delhi Capitals have retained Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs and Abhishek Porel. 

Your favourite stars ready to ROAR at Qila Kotla once again!

Read more on our retentions here https://t.co/LHchrsFoMZ pic.twitter.com/7i26Tc07nd

— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) October 31, 2024

Five-time champions Chennai Super Kings have picked Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube and MS Dhoni.

A latest report from Cricbuzz has stated that five-time champions Mumbai Indians are likely to retain Anshul Kamboj or Piyush Chawla as an uncapped player in place of Naman Dhir.

As per Revsports, all-rounder Andre Russell has been retained by Kolkata Knight Riders. He was expected to be released by the franchise ahead of IPL 2025 auction, but the report states that the side has decided to continue their association with the player. Russell has been a part of KKR franchise since 2014.

As per multiple reports, three captains Rishabh Pant (Delhi Capitals), KL Rahul (Lucknow Super Giants) and Shreyas Iyer (Kolkata Knight Riders) are expected to be released by their respective franchises.

Shubman Gill has reportedly taken a pay cut while continuing his stay at Gujarat Titans, claimed an India Today report. "Gill has decided to take a pay cut to ensure the core players are retained and build a stronger team," the organisation quoted an IPL source as saying. If this report turns out to be true, then Gill is definitely not going to be the first retention of GT.

KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer are expected to enter the auction pool. So seems the case with Ishan Kishan and Mohammed Siraj. These five big names could get some great interest from bidders if they actually enter the auction. Notably, the upcoming mega auction could see the wicketkeeper-batters fetching huge sum.

We are less than three hours away from the announcement of the retentions of the all 10 franchises. The deadline set by the BCCI for it is 5 PM IST. By that time, all the rumours will be put to rest as we will have official details on everything related to the retentions.

If Heinrich Klaasen is retained for Rs 23 crore, he will break the record of Virat Kohli, who is currently the player with highest retained amount. Ahead of IPL 2018 auction, Royal Challengers Bengaluru had retained Virat Kohli for Rs 17 crore, two crore higher than the retention slab set for the top-most retention.

Mulitple media reports have claimed that Heinrich Klaasen has been retained by SunRisers Hyderabad for a mammoth sum of Rs 23 crore. If this turns out to be true, it will make Klaasen the player with highest retained amount in IPL history. Notably, the highest retention money for a capped player is Rs 18 crore, however a franchise could pay an amount more than that as long as it remains inside the overall money allotted for the retention of the players.

As per an ESPNcricinfo report, three-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders are expected to not retain the likes of Shreyas Iyer and Andre Russell. As per the media organisation, the retentions of KKR would be Sunil Narine, Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana and Varun Chakravarthy.

According to a report by Indian Express, India star Rishabh Pant has emerged as the top pick for CSK. The franchise is keen on buying Pant if he enters the auction pool and that is mainly the point that has governed their planning for the IPL 2025 retentions.

Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag and 31-year-old Sandeep Sharma are the four players who will likely be retained by the Rajasthan Royals (RR) franchise on Monday ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 mega auction, as reported by ESPNcricinfo. These retentions will leave the 2008 champions with two right-to-match (RTM) card options at the upcoming mega auction. All four players mentioned above (Samson, Jaiswal, Parag and Sandeep) had an exceptional season this year as they delivered fine contributions for their side.

The 2022 champions Gujarat Titans had a mediocre outing in IPL 2024 as they failed to make it to the playoffs. However, GT are likely to retain Shubman Gill, Rashid Khan, B Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia and Shahrukh Khan, leaving them with only one right-to-match (RTM) option for the mega auction, as per ESPNCricinfo. 

As far as CSK's retention list goes, Ravindra Jadeja is followed by skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad at No. 2 spot while pacer Matheesha Pathirana has agreed to be the No. 3 choice retention. Two players among Shivam Dube, Devon Conway and Samir Rizvi are likely to be retained by the franchise as well.

Many reports are going around regarding Chennai Super Kings' potential retentions. If reports are to be believed then the five-time champions are likely to retain their former skipper and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja as the first choice for retention. 

The IPL's governing body has set minimum deductions from the purse for each player retained, with Rs 18 crores for the first player, Rs 14 crores for the second, Rs 11 crores for the third, Rs 18 crores for the fourth, Rs 14 crores for the fifth and Rs 4 crores for an uncapped player. Franchises are free to give their players more or less of these amounts to the players retained by them.

A match fee has been introduced for the first time in the history of IPL. Each Playing member (Including the Impact Player) will get a match fee of Rs 7.5 Lakhs per match. This will be in addition to his contracted amount.

The auction purse for the franchises has been set at Rs 120 Crore for IPL 2025. The total salary cap will now consist of auction purse, incremental performance pay and match fees. Previously in 2024, the total salary cap (auction purse + incremental performance pay) was Rs. 110 Crs which will now be Rs. 146 Crs (2025), Rs. 151 Crs (2026) and Rs. 157 Crs (2027).

Thursday, October 31 is the deadline by which all the franchises are supposed to submit the list of their retained players ahead of the mega auction. Each team can retain six players, out of which maximum of five can be capped and two uncapped. This can be either via retention or by using the Right to Match (RTM) option.

"Rishabh Pant wanted captaincy, wanted to be involved with regards to appointment of coaches and support staff but plenty in the DC set-up are not convinced about his T20 game. It wasn't that they wanted to let him go but they were clear that they didn't see him leading the side. And that decision wasn't an overnight one," the report in Times of India quoted a source as saying.

According to some reports, wicketkeeper-batter and skipper Rishabh Pant is all set to released by Delhi Capitals, ahead of the mega auctions. Pant, after recovering from a major accident, made a return to the IPL last season. He has been a consistent feature in the Indian cricket team as well. The report, however, said that DC management was not convinced about the leadership qualities of Pant in T20.