Hyderabad: The Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises revealed their list of retentions on Thursday, 31 October, 2024. The franchises spent a jaw-dropping amounts on their key players to retain them for the upcoming IPL 2025 season while some of the future stars have also been asked to stay back. Apart from Punjab Kings (PBKS), who retained just two players that too uncapped players, most of the franchises have kept their core ahead of the mega-auction, set to take place in the months of November and December.
Rajasthan Royals became the only team to use all the retention cards spending an incredible amount of money to keep their 6-player core intact and now only have a Rs 41 crore left for the mega-auction. On the other hand, PBKS go into the auction with Rs 110.5 crore and as many as four Right to match (RTM) cards and are likely to outbid most of the franchises if they get into a tussle for a player.
South African wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen earned the best payday on October 31, as SunRisers Hyderabad paid him a whopping Rs 23 crore to keep him in the squad. On the other hand, Virat Kohli became the most expensive Indian player who was retained by Royal Challengers Bengaluru as the franchise paid Rs 21 crore to retain the leading run getter.
Despite the cap for retentions set at Rs 18, 14, 11, 18 and 14 crore, the franchise played around with their money as per the need and demand of the player in the Indian Premier League ecosystem. On that note, here are most expensive players from IPL player retentions, announced on October 31.
- Heinrich Klaasen - Rs 23 crore
Virat Kohli, Nicholas Pooran - Rs 21 crore
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah, Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Pat Cummins, Rashid Khan - Rs 18 crore - Axar Patel, Shubman Gill - Rs 16.5 crore
Here's the list of complete retentions from each franchise and the purse that they have remaining ahead of the mega-auction.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) - Rs 51 crore
Retentions: Sunil Narine (12), Rinku Singh (13), Andre Russell (12), Varun Chakaravarthy (12), Harshit Rana (4) and Ramandeep Singh (4).
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) - Rs 45 crore
Retentions: Heinrich Klaasen (23), Pat Cummins (18), Travis Head (14), Abhishek Sharma (14) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (6).
Rajasthan Royals (RR) - Rs 41 crore
Retentions: Sanju Samson (18), Riyan Parag (14), Yashasvi Jaiswal (18), Sandeep Sharma (4), Dhruv Jurel (14) and Shimron Hetmyer (11).
Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) - Rs 83 crore