Hyderabad: Former India batter and IPL Expert, JioCinema Aakash Chopra asserted that he would be very surprised if Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) retain their current captain Faf du Plessis ahead of the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) mega-auction.
Faf du Plessis, who is the fourth leading run-getter of the franchise, joined RCB when he was picked for a massive Rs seven crore in the 2021 mega-auction. On March 12, 2022, the former RCB Skipper, Virat Kohli announced that he would be passing on the baton to Faf du Plessis, who will be the new Captain of the franchise.
When asked about whether RCB will retain Faf du Plessis and Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell, Aakash Chopra said, "I will be very surprised if Faf du Plessis is retained by RCB. For the specific reason that in the past the first retention costs you about 16-17 crores, even the second one is very expensive and it's a three-year deal."
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"Whoever you going to retain, are you 100 per cent sure that he is my three-year FD (Fixed Deposit) and can cash, in the third season as well? Faf, well he has played all-right, but will Faf be available three years down the line, who knows? So, that is my only concern. Great player, and a very good captain, but very difficult to say which way retentions are going to go," he added.
However, Aakash, who played 10 Tests for India, also mentioned that when it comes to retention, the details about how many players you can retain, and how many right-to-match cards are available are unknown yet, which will help the franchise's to draw the perfect strategy to build another team which will potentially win the trophy for you.
Faf du Plessis has amassed 1565 runs in only 43 games for RCB at an impressive strike rate of 147.64 that includes 14 fifties. He is the fourth leading run-getter of the franchise after their former captain and his opening partner Virat Kohli, who leads the chart with 8,348 runs, followed by AB de Villiers (4,522) and Chris Gayle (3,420).
Faf is second highest scorer for the franchise this year with 367 runs on his name at an average of 28.23 and a strike rate of 168.34 in the ongoing 17th season of the cash-rich league. He has also smashed three half-centuries for the side.
The IPL Retention deadline is on Thursday, October 31, 2024. On the deadline day, all the ten teams will reveal their released and retained players list ahead of the IPL Mega Auction, which is likely to be held in November 2024. The IPL retention deadline is set for 5 PM IST on Thursday (October 31), when teams need to submit their retained and released players list to the BCCI and the IPL GC.
The IPL retention special show live streaming will begin at 4:30 PM IST on Thursday (October 31) via JioCinema for free, while the TV programme will be shown on Star Sports Network.
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