New Delhi: India’s World Cup hero Yuvraj Singh, who was the most expensive player during the IPL-7 auctions with a purse of Rs 14 crore, has been released by his franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore as the trading window for the next edition of the cricket league ended on Monday.
Apart from Yuvraj, the biggest name to be released by any franchise was Delhi Daredevils’ captain of last season Kevin Pietersen and their costliest player Dinesh Karthik, who grabbed eyeballs after being picked for a whopping Rs 12.5 crore.
Some of the other big names that were released include veteran pacer Zaheer Khan by Mumbai Indians while Test opener Murali Vijay did not find his name in the Delhi set-up as the franchise released as many as 13 players.
Among other veterans, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag have been retained by their respective franchises Mumbai Indians and Kings Xi Punjab.
Delhi Daredevils’ Chief Executive Officer Hemant Dua confirmed the development and also explained the reason for this decision by the management. Daredevils will go into the auction with a purse of Rs 41 crore.
“Yes, we have submitted our list of releases to the IPL governing council and I can confirm that we have released Kevin Pietersen, Dinesh Karthik and Murali Vijay among the marquee players. We have only retained 11 players from the last season of IPL,” Dua told PTI today.
Asked whether Karthik was an expensive buy, Dua said, “It was the decision of the Daredevils management. The rationale behind releasing some of the marquee players is going into the auction with a bigger purse and also look from the perspective of being cost effective.”
Among the eight franchises, the least released players are from the controversial Chennai Super Kings, which has only got rid of Ben Hilfenhaus, John Hastings, Vijay Shankar and David Hussey.
Apart from Daredevils, the other team that has released maximum number of players is Sunrisers Hyderabad which has given the boot to 10 players.
Daredevils will go into the auction with a purse of Rs 41 crore while RCB and Sunrisers will have Rs 21.5 crore and rs 21 crore respectively.
Sunrisers have rightly released Irfan Pathan, who has remained injured for the better part of this year but it was surprising to find Darren Sammy and Aaron Finch’s name being struck off from the list.
The least amount of money will be with CSK with only Rs 5 crore purse while Mumbai Indians have the second lowest purse at Rs 10 crore.
List of Released Players:
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Total Purse: Rs 21 cr):
Amit Mishra, Aaron Finch, Darren Sammy, Irfan Pathan, Jason Holder, Y Venugopal Rao, Bernard Taylor, Prashant Parmeshwaran, Aniruddh Srikkanth, Manprit Juneja
Mumbai Indians (Total Purse: Rs 10 cr):
Zaheer Khan, Pragyan Ojha, Jalaj Saxena, CM Gautham, Sushant Marathe, Apurv Wankhede, Krishmar Santokie, Ben Dunk.
Chennai Super Kings (Total Purse: Rs 5 Crore): Ben Hilfenhaus, John Hastings, Vijay Shankar, David Hussey
Delhi Daredevils: (Total Purse: Rs 41 cr):
Kevin Pietersen, Murali Vijay, Dinesh Karthik, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Ross Taylor, Jaydev Unadkat, Rahul Sharma, Jimmy Neesham, Siddharth Kaul, Wayne Parnell, Rahul Shukla, HS Sharath, Milind Kumar, Imran Tahir
Kings XI Punjab (Rs 12 crore):
Cheteshwar Pujara, L Balaji, Murali Kartik (Retd)
Kolkata Knight Riders (Total Purse: 13 crore):
Jacques Kallis (Retd), R Vinay Kumar, Manvinder Bisla, Debabrata Das, Sayan Sekhar Mondal Rajasthan Royals: (Total Purse: Rs 13 crore)
Brad Hodge, Unmukt Chand, Iqbal Abdulla, Kevon Cooper, Ankit Sharma, Amit sharma, Ankush Bains Royal Challengers Bangalore: (Total Purse: Rs 21.5 crore) Yuvraj Singh, Albie Morkel, Parthiv Patel, Muttiah Muralitharan, Ravi Rampaul, Sachin Rana, Shadab Jakati, Tanmay Mishra. (PTI)