Franchises in the Indian Premier League submitted their list of most-cherished players they would like to retain as their undisturbed core before they go into auction for the seventh season next month.
Under revised rules, the IPL governing board have stipulated that each franchise can retain five players at pre-determined salary caps out of a total budget of 600 million rupees (Dh357m).
However, that would mean exhausting wo-thirds of the total outlay they can spend on the entire team of 16 or more players.
To queer the team retention strategies, teams get a maximum of two right-to-match’ cards which they can activate if they want to retain a player they released initially but want to buy back at the new bid price. The right-to-match cards are given on the basis of two, two, one and zero for teams retaining two, three, four and five players respectively.
Accordingly, after yesterday’s deadline, defending champions Mumbai Indians and two-times winners Chennai Super Kings opted to give up their right-to-match offers by retaining five players each.
Among the big names to have been released, Virender Sehwag was let go by Delhi Daredevils. The explosive opener Sehwag recently lost his central contract with the Indian cricket board after a long run of poor form.
Kings XI Punjab sprang a surprise by retaining an uncapped domestic player Manan Vohra as one of their two names.
The rest of the players will go under the hammer on February 12.
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