The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) has announced the Indian Premier League IPL 2025 retention rules and the franchise will now start to make their retentions final before the mega auction. Before announcing the rules, the BCCI had a meeting with the IPL franchise owners, considering their opinions on retention rules. Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) was one of the teams who wanted to have more and more retentions so that they could keep their core group. The BCCI has come up with the number of 6 as the franchise is allowed to retain that many players before the IPL 2025 mega auction.
Today, we will see the possible SRH retention list before the auction and try to figure out their strategy. We will see how many players and which players SRH might retain before the mega auction. So let’s dive into it quickly.
SRH wanted more retention for the IPL 2025
As we said earlier, the BCCI had a meeting with the IPL franchise owners regarding the retention rules and a few more points. There are some different viewpoints from different franchises on a number of retentions. Some teams who didn’t want to have a settled core group and wanted to make a new core group wanted to have fewer retentions. According to the reports, teams like Delhi Capitals (DC) and Punjab Kings (PBKS) wanted less retention.
On the other hand, some teams like Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), etc wanted to have more and more retention so that they could keep their core group before the IPL 2025 mega auction.
SRH did well in the last season, reaching the final of the IPL 2024. Unfortunately, they lost to KKR in the final and couldn’t cross the line. They have a strong team with some international stars like Pat Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, Travis Head, etc. They had some young talents like Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, T Natarajan, etc and overall, they have a very strong lineup. But, with the mega auction coming up, they cannot retain all the players in the team as there are only 6 retentions allowed to the franchises.
IPL 2025 retention rules
Before discussing the SRH retention list, it is important to know the IPL 2025 retention rules. Especially, there are some changes in the rules which might help SRH as well.
The BCCI has allowed a total of 6 retentions to the franchise, including the RTM (Right to Match) card. Also, the franchises can retain a maximum of 5 uncapped players and a maximum of 2 uncapped players. The rule that might help SRH is no cap on retaining overseas players. SRH looks like a team that might retain more overseas players than the Indian players. They have some big international stars in the team.
Now, the catch is the first three retained players will receive INR 18, 14, and 11 crore respectively. Then, again the franchise had to spend INR 18, and 14 crore if they wanted to retain the 4th and 5th players. They can retain an uncapped player for INR 4 crore and can choose to use an RTM card during the auction as well.
SRH retention list (Probable)
Now that we have seen the IPL 2025 retention rules, we can see SRH has to spend almost 80 crores to retain 6 players if they don’t want to use an RTM card. The total purse of the franchises is 120 crores. So SRH might also look to use an RTM card if they think some of the players can come at a lesser price.
As far as the SRH retention list is concerned, Pat Cummins and Abhishek Sharma are the two likely retentions we can expect. Pat Cummins is the captain of the team, who also won than ODI WC and WTC as Australia’s captain. He is a good bowler and a decent lower-order batter as well.
SRH might also look at Abhishek Sharma as a long-term investment. He has the age, a fearless approach, and a part-time spin option. The left-hander is now an international player as well.
Other players SRH might consider retaining
Travis Head and Heinrich Klaasen have to be their top priority in the batting order. Head is a player who can attack the opposition from ball one. He plays fearlessly as we saw in IPL 2024 and he and Abhishek formed a good partnership at the top.
Klaasen, on the other hand, is an outstanding white-ball player in the world and probably the best player of spin. He can control the game in the middle when mostly the spinners operate and finish the game with his ability to hit the long ball in the end.
The only problem SRH will face is whether to spend that much money via direct retention or they can bring one of them in a lesser amount through RTM in the auction. It will be interesting to see how they go about their business.
Conclusion
So this is all about the SRH retention list strategy before the IPL 2025. They can also retain Abdul Samad and T Natarajan but as we said, it all comes down to how much money they want during the mega auction.
What do you think? Will SRH retain 6 players or will they let go of some of their players in the auction? Comment your prediction below.
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FAQs:-
(1) Will an overseas player be banned if he pulls out of the tournament after getting picked?
Yes. The BCCI has come up with the rule after considering all the franchises’ viewpoints that an overseas player will face a ban of two years if he pulls out of the tournament without any injury or medical reasons, after getting picked in the auction.
(2) Can we see more than 10 in the next few IPL seasons?
A few reports were floating in the media regarding the increase in the number of IPL teams. The talks are there to increase the number of teams in the IPL, but it might happen after a few years. We will not see more than 10 teams in IPL 2025, and maybe in the near future.
