Rajasthan Royals have decided not to retain England white-ball captain Jos Buttler for the 2025 Indian Premier League season.
Buttler has been with the Royals since 2018 and was the IPL’s most valuable player two years ago, but the Royals opted against retaining him before the mega-auction later this year.
Each of the 10 franchises will be allowed to retain a total of up to six players from last season, including five capped at international level. There were no English players among them.
Punjab Kings are retaining Jonny Bairstow, Liam Livingstone, Chris Woakes and Sam Curran, who they bought for a then IPL record £1.85 million in 2023, but all are available for the franchise to acquire at auction. The possibility remains.
Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders have released title-winning captain Shreyas Iyer, Australia’s Mitchell Starc, who became the IPL’s most expensive player for the 2024 season, and England’s Phil Salt.
South African wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaassen has been retained by Sunrisers Hyderabad for 23 million Indian rupees (about 210 million yen), who also retained Australian duo Pat Cummins and Travis Head.
Jasprit Bumrah and Rohit Sharma (Mumbai Indians), Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bangalore) and Ravindra Jadeja (Chennai Super Kings) are among the Indian players who will remain, while KL Rahul (Lucknow Super Giants) and Ravichandran Ashwin (Rajasthan Royals) have been released.
The date for the mega-auction is yet to be confirmed, but as part of new rules to be introduced in 2025, players who leave the Indian Premier League at short notice will be banned from participating in the next two seasons.
sky sports It will continue to be the home of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Women’s Premier League (WPL) next spring, bringing sports fans the world’s best players from the men’s and women’s games. England & Ireland until at least 2027.
Who was held back?
Correct as of October 31st. Sort player names by last name
Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Matisha Pathirana.
Capital of Delhi: Axar Patel, Abhishek Porel, Tristan Stubbs, Kuldeep Yadav.
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill, Rashid Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Sai Sudarsan, Rahul Tewatia.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Harshit Rana, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh.
Lucknow Super Giants: Ayush Badni, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Nicholas Pooran, Mayank Yadav.
Indians in Mumbai: Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav.
Kings of Punjab: Prabhsimran Singh, Shashank Singh.
Rajasthan Royals: Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jhurel, Riyan Parag, Sanju Samson, Sandeep Sharma.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Yash Dayal, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins, Travis Head, Heinrich Claassen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma.
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