The last date of submission for the player retention of IPL 2018 is January 4. Nonetheless, all the franchises are more or less certain about the set of players they wish to retain, and the ones they would buy back implementing the Right To Match (RTM) cards.
According to reports, defending champions Mumbai Indians in all likelihood will be retaining skipper Rohit Sharma along with Pandya brothers, Hardik and Krunal.
“Skipper Rohit Sharma is an automatic retention having led the team to three IPL titles. Hardik Pandya is one of the big match-winners and the interesting third retention would be Krunal Pandya,” a senior BCCI official told PTI on Monday.
“Krunal being an uncapped Indian can be retained for only Rs 3 crore instead of Rs 7 crore for third capped player. Also Krunal was an exceptional performer last year,” he added.
It is learned that it is a strategic decision to retain Krunal as this will enable the MI to buy back Kieron Pollard and Jasprit Bumrah using RTM.
“MI has been the biggest advocate of five retentions. These five are their core group of match winners and it will be surprising if they deviate from this strategy.
If you retain two capped players, you spend INR 21 crore (INR 12.5 crore for Player 1 and INR 8.5 for Player 2) instead of Rs 33 crore for three capped players (Rs 15 crore for Player 1, Rs 11 crore for Player 2 and Rs 7 crore for Player 3),” the official explained.
