IPL 2019 squads: Who is in and Who is out in all the franchises ahead of auction – An explainer

The 2019 edition of the Indian Premier League will see changes, regarding team players as well as schedule. With the Indian General Elections and the World Cup held in the same year, there are chances that the IPL might be played at an earlier date, most likely in March. The IPL auctions will be held on December 18 and 19, with most media reports stating that it could be held in Jaipur. With the BCCI maintaining a mandatory 15-day gap between the IPL final and international assignment as per the Lodha Committee recommendations, the chances are that the tournament may end in the beginning of May itself. Due to the elections, there is every possibility that the tournament might be held outside India.

With respect to changes in team personnel, there has been plenty of movement. Shikhar Dhawan is heading back to his home base of Delhi for IPL 2019 while Steve Smith and David Warner, both banned by Cricket Australia for one year due to the ball-tampering scandal have been retained by both Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad respectively.

Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals have released 10 players while Kings XI Punjab have released the most with 11, including players like Aaron Finch, Yuvraj Singh and Axar Patel. Here is an explainer of players who have been retained and released by the franchisees:

Chennai Super Kings

The three-time IPL champions have retained a whopping 23 players and have left out three players in Kanishk Seth, Kshitiz Sharma and Mark Wood. The team only has slots for two Indian players and they have a purse of just Rs 8.4 crores heading into the auction.

Sunrisers Hyderabad

Apart from Warner, the team has retained the core, but they have let go of eight members, including wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha, West Indies Twenty20 skipper Carlos Brathwaite and England dasher Alex Hales. With Dhawan moving to Delhi Daredevils in the trade-off period, Sunrisers Hyderabad have a purse of Rs 9.7 crores in which they can bid for three Indian and two foreign players.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Quinton de Kock was traded to Mumbai Indians and in addition, players like Corey Anderson, Brendon McCullum and Chris Woakes have been released. With Mandeep Singh also getting traded for Marcus Stoinis, Virat Kohli’s RCB will have a purse of Rs 18.15 crores. They can bid big for the Indian talent in the upcoming auction.

Kolkata Knight Riders

The two-time IPL champions have released the bulk of their foreign buys. Mitchell Starc, brought for Rs 9.4 crore, has been released from his contract, along with the likes of Mitchell Johnson, Tom Curran, Javon Searles and Cameron Delport. Among Indians, Vinay Kumar was the notable name to have been released after a poor performance in 2018. With Rs 15.2 crores available, they can bid for 12 players in the auction, with five overseas players.

Kings XI Punjab

It looks like Kings XI Punjab have decided to totally revamp the squad. They have released 11 players from the squad, the most and are equipped with a purse of Rs 36.2 crore, the highest. The likes of Finch, Yuvraj and Axar are without a team. If Yuvraj is not picked for this edition of the IPL, it might well be his swansong from all cricket. They can go all-out in the auction with 15 slots available.

Rajasthan Royals

Ajinkya Rahane’s side have released 10 players, with one surprise in the form of Jaydev Unadkat, who was the leading wicket-taker for Rising Pune Supergiant in the 2017 edition. However, the core of the team that reached the eliminator in 2018 is still there and with the arrival of Smith, the team’s batting will get a boost.  The Royals have a purse of Rs 20.95 crore heading into the auction

Mumbai Indians

With the three-time champions failing to make it to the knock-outs in 2018, the team has released some notable players. Pat Cummins, Mustafizur Rahman, JP Duminy and Akila Dananjaya are the notable foreign players to be released by the franchise. With a purse of Rs 11.15 crore available, Mumbai Indians can buy seven players in total.

Delhi Daredevils

With Australian players not committing to the entire IPL tournament, the likes of Glenn Maxwell have been released. Among Indians, big names like Gautam Gambhir and Mohammed Shami have also been let go. Gambhir struggled with the captaincy of the side in 2018 and he decided to forego his salary and captaincy for the remainder of the season. Dhawan’s arrival will boost the batting and with a purse of Rs 25.5 crore, the second-most among the franchisees, Delhi Daredevils can bid big again but the question of whether they bid sensibly is the big issue.

Retained players

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Faf du Plessis, M Vijay, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Billings, Mitchell Santner, David Willey, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Lungi Ngidi, Imran Tahir, Kedar Jadhav, Ambati Rayudu, Harbhajan Singh, Deepak Chahar, KM Asif, Karn Sharma, Dhruv Shorey, N Jagadeesan, Shardul Thakur, Monu Kumar, Chaitanya Bishnoi

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami (wk), Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, Billy Stanlake, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Shakib Al Hasan

Royal Challengers Bangalore: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Colin de Grandhomme, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kulwant Khejroliya

Kolkata Knight Riders: Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shubman Gill, Piyush Chawla, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Shivam Mavi, Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Kamlesh Nagarkoti

Kings XI Punjab: Lokesh Rahul, Chris Gayle, Andrew Tye, Mayank Agarwal, Ankit Rajpoot, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Karun Nair, David Miller and Ravichandran Ashwin

Delhi Daredevils: Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Manjot Kalra, Colin Munro, Chris Morris, Kagiso Rabada, Sandeep Lamichhane, Trent Boult

Rajasthan Royals: Ajinkya Rahane, Krishnappa Gowtham, Sanju Samson, Shreyas Gopal, Aryaman Birla, S. Midhun, Prashant Chopra, Stuart Binny, Rahul Tripathi, Ben Stokes, Steve Smith, Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer, Ish Sodhi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Mahipal Lomror

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma (C), Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Quinton de Kock, Evin Lewis, Kieron Pollard, Ben Cutting, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne, Jason Behrendorff