Blog - Deadline day for IPL teams to retain players

Right, that is all from us today. Thanks for sticking around, and see you at the auction! We'll leave you with a poll as we go away.

Here's Matt Roller sizing up Jofra's exclusion:

"Jofra Archer won the MVP award in his most recent season at Rajasthan Royals in 2020 but he has not been retained for IPL 2022. Archer has played only two competitive matches since England’s T20I series in India in March due to a serious elbow injury which has required surgery and is not due to return until early next year. His ability to bowl at both ends of an innings and his lower-order six-hitting means that he should be a major draw in the auction despite his long injury lay-off but he did not come to an agreement with Rajasthan, with Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler and Yashasvi Jaiswal their three retained players. In 35 appearances for the franchise since he was signed for 7.2 crore as an uncapped overseas player in the 2018 auction, Archer took 46 wickets with a miserly economy rate of 7.13, and hit 195 runs at a strike rate of 157.25."

So Suryakumar Yadav (8 crore) will make more than Kieron Pollard (6 crore) this season, and both Varun Chakravarthy and Venkatesh Iyer (8 crore each) will be making more than Sunil Narine (6 crore). Those are the big takeaways from the lists we have - there is a premium on young Indian players like there always has been, but those two KKR players in particular can be very proud of where they are the moment. Consider that neither of them was a serious professional cricketer until a couple of years ago and had prospects outside the game itself. When we talk of how revolutionary T20 cricket has been, these big paydays really back us up, don’t they? At the very least, they back up those who've become unlikely millionaires.

RR: Three players retained, INR 62 crore left at auction

K Sangakkara: We couldn't ascertain the nature and extent of Jofra's injury.

KKR: All four players retained, INR 48 crore left at auction

• Rishabh Pant (16 crore)
• Axar Patel (9 crore, 12 crore deducted from purse)
• Prithvi Shaw (7.5 crore, 8 crore deducted from purse)
• Anrich Nortje (6.5 crore)

DC: All four players retained, INR 47.5 crore left at auction

Parth Jindal, owner: It's not fair that you build a team, you groom them, and they play for their countries and you lose them in the end. IPL needs to have a look at it, but it is what it is. I wish our outgoing players the best. With the money we have, we're going to try and bring as many of them back as possible.

CSK: All four players retained, INR 48 crore left at auction

L Balaji says all three of Ravindra Jadeja, MS Dhoni, and Moeen Ali are difficult to replace and it that's why they've been retained. Says it was very difficult to leave out guys like Faf, Rayudu, and Bravo.

Ravindra Jadeja: Jadeja is yellow again. Whistle podu.

SRH: Three players retained, INR 68 crore left at auction

Sunrisers' CEO K Shanmugam says Rashid Khan wanted to be in the auction and they will try and pick him up there.

PBKS: Two players retained, INR 72 crore left at auction

Anil Kumble: We wanted to retain Rahul, but he decided to go into the auction. We respect that, we honour that decision. It's the player's prerogative.

MI: All four players retained, INR 48 crore left at auction

Rohit Sharma: It was going to be the toughest retention for Mumbai this year. We've had absolutely gu players and to release them is heartbreaking. They've done some amazing work and created memories for this franchise. But we've got four players including myself who can hopefully form a good core.

RCB: Three players retained, INR 57 crore left at auction

Virat Kohli: The journey continues. When I was contacted, I had no doubts. Three more years with this franchise means so much to me. I believe the best is yet to come and I have a good feeling with what's to come from the next season onwards. We hope we make all of you proud, our fan base is amazing and we love all of you. I'll be there with my heart and soul, as always.

Here is our analyst Gaurav Sundararaman weighing in on all the things we have seen today:

"One of the major learnings from this retention process is that player power is the most it has ever been. Franchises who were not prepared for this. Players are the ones who make this league so successful, and careers are short. They deserve every single penny. The people behind these cricketers like agents or managers might have played a big role in negotiating and influencing certain decisions. This is new to both players and franchises. Who advises these players is key, as sometimes it could backfire as well. One of the main reasons why a few uncapped/capped players have not been retained is because they believe they would get a better payday in the auction. While it might work for a few, it may not work for everyone, as the auction dynamics are very different.

"How does a player make this decision? It depends on who is advising them, where they are in their cricketing career and above all, game time. There might be a case where a player feels he would get 14 games elsewhere or he might feel he is better in a new management. These are discussions, which are privy only to the management and player and as people from the outside, we would never know the real reason. Most of the players want the right price for their talent and performance and hence they feel going into the auction would be the best way to judge that.

"As the IPL evolves, franchises will learn and slowly start figuring out ways to keep the players they want badly happy to prevent poaching and to ensure investment gives results."

If a franchise retains four players, INR 42 crore will be deducted from the total purse (INR 90 crore).

If they hold on to three players, the purse will shrink by INR 33 crore.

Two retentions will cost them INR 24 crore.

If only one player is retained, they need to dish out INR 14 crore.

For uncapped players, INR 4 crore will be deducted from the purse per player.

Here's how much teams have left at the moment:

We will know officially how much each team is paying these players, and whether there are more names to be announced in about an hour's time.

The amounts we have mentioned will be the official amounts cut from the purses before the auction, but it won't necessarily be what the teams are paying those players. Teams could well be paying under what the slab says they are paying, so some amount deductions may end up being notional, i.e. they will be officially deducted from the books, but might not necessarily be going directly into the players' salaries. All those details when we get it.

There are bound to be questions about why some seemingly obvious retentions weren't made, and this is where we must understand the power of the player himself.

For instance, there is no logical reason why Punjab Kings wouldn't retain a KL Rahul, or a Sunrisers wouldn't retain a Rashid Khan. You know it, we know it, and they know it - you don't get many better players than that in this format. So step one of trying to make sense of this is to realise that it is almost a 100% certainty that these players were offered to be retained.

The next step would be understanding that it would be down to the player to accept that offer. And they can reject for a variety of reasons - they might want a higher paying slot than the one being offered, they might fancy themselves to make a whole lot more outside of the retention process, or they might simply be looking for new challenges outside of the franchise they were in.

It's one or a combination of all those reasons why you might not see someone "obvious" be retained. Remember, if you've thought of it, it is likely a franchise who is staking several crores on this competition has thought of it.

It is official. Rashid Khan's stint with Sunrisers Hyderabad is all but over. Rashid has never played for any other franchise in the IPL, and it is hard to imagine that he won't break some serious records for salary when he goes back into the pool. Remember, it's not just the franchise that determines retention - a player must accept their offer too. And in this case, it's most plausible that Rashid might not have been happy with what was offered; I, for one, cannot imagine that SRH didn't try to keep him.

Sunrisers therefore have only Kane Williamson as a capped and retained player; their two other retentions are Jammu & Kashmir rookies Abdul Samad and Umran Malik, who will both cost them INR 4 crore each from their purse. We understand that SRH's retentions end with this announcement. After a disappointing season, we're going to see a complete makeover from them.

We understand that Ben Stokes, Liam Livingstone, and Chris Morris will all not be retained by Rajasthan Royals. Jos Buttler and uncapped opener Yashasvi Jaiswal will make the cut. As was the case with Arshdeep Singh, Yashavi's being uncapped will mean that his retention will cost Rajasthan Royals INR 4 crore of their purse. Rajasthan now have one slot remaining. Here is Matt Roller weighing in from our UK office:

"When Rajasthan Royals returned from their two-season ban ahead of the 2018 IPL, they made Ben Stokes one of their three biggest purchases alongside Steven Smith and Jaydev Unadkat, shelling out 12.5 crore for his services at the auction in Bangalore. They retained him for the next four seasons but a combination of injury, unavailability and a lack of a defined role meant that he failed to hit the heights of his MVP season for Rising Pune Supergiant in 2017: he averaged 23.23 with a strike rate of 130.45 and took 16 wickets while conceding 9.42 runs per over across 31 games for the franchise. He is the biggest name the Royals have released, with Liam Livingstone, Chris Morris, Evin Lewis, David Miller a Kartik Tyagi also set to return to the auction pool – unless they are picked up by one of the two new franchises."

Alright, now for the team everyone was keeping an eye on - Mumbai Indians. This is the team that had most to lose, one would think. Remember, they’ve discovered and buoyed some key domestic talents, while being able to keep on retaining superstar names like Kieron Pollard.

Well, that is name No. 1 for you. Kieron Pollard has been retained. The last time it had come to this type of a decision, Mumbai Indians had not retained Pollard; instead they went after him with an RTM card in the auction and got him back at a lower price. No RTMs this time, and no risking potentially losing out on Pollard. He is retained alongside Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah.

To round off Mumbai’s rotations, it will be Suryakumar Yadav retained by the Mumbai Indians. We’ll need to dissect this one long into the night. Presumably their options were Hardik Pandya, who has been indispensable to them, and Ishan Kishan, who is a massive favourite and someone they back to the hilt. Both Hardik and Ishan will not be guaranteed slots as Mumbai players next season. Massive news for them, but also for Suryakumar Yadav, who has had a dream last 12 months or so. He will be Mumbai’s second local player retained for next season.

During the last round, Hardik Pandya was Mumbai’s second retained player at a price of INR 11 crore. He will now be in the auction (if not picked up by the new franchises) and is expected to fetch at least that amount, if not more, as India’s premiere allrounder in this format.

Mumbai's retentions are now closed. Final list: Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Kieron Pollard, Suryakumar Yadav

Royal Challengers have made three retentions so far, which means Kohli's cap has gone up from INR 14 crore when it was just him and Maxwell to INR 15 crore now. Should they retain a fourth, his retention will cost RCB INR 16 crore - which would still be lower than Kohli's last retention rate of INR 17 crore. So, one way or another, Kohli will officially cost lesser on RCB's books.

Last time round, RCB were the only team to pay more than the prescribed IPL price of INR 15 crore for the first retained player - those were the prices at which names like Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni were retained - by bumping their Kohli allotment up to INR 17 crore and using INR 1.75 crore to retain Sarfaraz Khan as their third player. It had made him the highest earning player on any team's IPL rolls.

We have word coming in on Punjab Kings at last. Having lost out on KL Rahul, they did not want to lose out on whom they consider their second-best batter. So Mayank Agarwal stays at Punjab Kings. Alongside him is a talent they scouted, groomed, and made a key part of their bowling attack inside just two seasons. Left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh gets his reward at Punjab Kings. These two players will continue with Punjab next year. Arshdeep will cost Punjab INR 4 crore of their purse because he is an uncapped player.

No mention yet of Shahrukh Khan, whose stocks have risen even further after a dramatic last-ball six to seal the Syed Mushtaq Ali title for Tamil Nadu last week.

ESPNcricinfo understands that RCB have added Mohammed Siraj to their retention list. He goes alongside Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell as the third player from the current group who is assured a spot in the next season.

Jonny Bairstow has responded to Sunrisers Hyderabad's farewell post which says, 'this is not a goodbye, as we hope to welcome back some Risers in the auction' by thanking them for their support and saying he hopes their paths cross in the future. Does this mean the end of the road for this partnership? He was a massive name for them over the last few years, particularly in the 2019 season when he got 445 runs in 10 innings, with a century and two fifties. The only retention news we've heard from SRH so far is that of Kane Williamson's. This is a pretty good sign that Bairstow may not feature in any retention updates we get from the Sunrisers today.

Here's how much teams have left at the moment:

From tomorrow. They have from December 1 to December 25 to sign up to three players (two Indian and one overseas) each from all those going back into the auction pool after the eight existing franchises have finished their business today.

If a franchise retains four players, INR 42 crore will be deducted from the total purse (INR 90 crore).

If they hold on to three players, the purse will shrink by INR 33 crore.

Two retentions will cost them INR 24 crore.

If only one player is retained, they need to dish out INR 14 crore.

For uncapped players, INR 4 crore will be deducted from the purse per player.