As the IPL auction nears, the franchises are almost certain about what players they exactly want for the eleventh edition of IPL. The last date to announce player retention is January 4 and a BCCI official gave a little insight into team”s choices of retention.
As per the official, the defending champions Mumbai Indians are likely to retain skipper Rohit Sharma and Pandya brothers. Both Pandya brothers have been extremely influential in their previous stints with Mumbai Indians. It is believed that Jasprit Bumrah and Kieron Pollard will be Mumbai”s choices of RTM.
If reports are to be believed, Delhi Daredevils are likely to retain Shreyas Iyer and Rishab Pant. Shreyas Iyer won the award for rising star of IPL in 2015 while Pant is one of the brightest prospects in Indian cricket at the moment.
“MI has been the biggest advocate of five retentions. These five are their core group of match winners and it will be surprising if they deviate from this strategy.” the official said.
It is virtually certain that CSK is likely to go with Dhoni, Raina, and Jadeja as their 3 choices. On the other hand, Virat Kohli is most probably going to stay with RCB. It is also improbable that RCB will let go services of AB de Villiers and hence his retention is almost certain.
Yuzvendra Chahal who has been absolutely magical with the ball in T20Is for India in 2017 is an invaluable asset and could be RCB”s third choice of retention.
An IPL Franchise is eligible to secure up to 5 players by virtue of a combination of Player Retention (Pre Player Auction) and Right to Match (RTM) (During the Player Auction).
• A maximum of either 3 retentions or 3 RTM at the discretion of the franchises
• If there is no retention before player auction then franchises can have up to 3 RTM
Following will apply irrespective of player retention or RTM –
A maximum number of 3 Capped Indian players.
A maximum number of 2 Overseas players.
A maximum number of 2 Uncapped Indian players.
The player pool available for CSK and RR for retention/RTM will be the players’ who played for them respectively in IPL 2015 and who were part of RPS and GL squads in IPL 2017. Players like Ben Stokes and Jason Roy who were picked by RPS and GL respectively and had not represented any franchises before will go under the hammer.
If a team opts for 3 retentions, it will cost them 33 crores (15 + 11 + 7).
For 2 retentions, an amount of 21 crores (12.5+ 8.5) will be deducted from the purse.
Only 1 retention will cost teams only 12.5 crores but will not give them an additional RTM card and hence they can secure up to maximum 4 players from last year”s squad.
– by Atharva Apte
