Sunrisers Hyderabad surprised quite a few by opting to release the fast bowling duo of Ishant Sharma and Dale Steyn, while they also let go of England discard Kevin Pietersen.
Yuvraj Singh along with fast bowlers Ishant Sharma and Dale Steyn were among the big names released by their respective Indian Premier League franchises on Thursday before the window to retain players for the ninth season of the T20 tournament in 2016 closed.
As many as 101 cricketers, including 37 overseas, were retained by the eight IPL franchises.
Yuvraj, who was bought for a massive Rs 16 crore by Delhi Daredevils for IPL 8, and Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews were released, but veteran Zaheer Khan, who retired from international cricket earlier this year, was retained.
Yuvraj, who returned to the Indian team for the T20 leg of the Australian tour, failed to live up to expectations last season, aggregating only 248 runs from 14 matches.
"Yuvraj Singh is a great player and the reason of releasing him is to rationalise our budget. He is in good form now and has got back to the Indian team. But there were budgetary constraints which led to the decision. I have personally spoken to Yuvraj. There are no hard feelings," Daredevils CEO Hemant Dua said.
Delhi Daredevils will be going into the February auction with a purse of Rs 36.85 crore to spend on salary of players, the highest among the eight franchises.
Sunrisers Hyderabad surprised quite a few by opting to release the fast bowling duo of Ishant Sharma and Dale Steyn, while they also let go of England discard Kevin Pietersen.
Dinesh Karthik, who was bought for 10.5 crore by Royal Challengers Bangalore, was also released.
For Kings XI Punjab, Virender Sehwag, who retired from international cricket recently, was released along with former captain George Bailey.
Former India spinner Pragyan Ojha, Australian paceman Josh Hazlewood were off-loaded by Mumbai Indians.
In all, Daredevils have released 10 players while Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers released eight including Sehwag.
RCB released the maximum of 14 players while Mumbai Indians and KKR released 10 players each.
List of players released by the IPL franchises:
Delhi Daredevils |
Kings XI Punjab |
Player Name |
Player Name |
Yuvraj Singh |
Karanveer Singh |
C.M. Gautam |
Parvinder Awana |
Domnic Joseph Muthuswamy |
Shivam Sharma |
Jaydev Unadkat |
Virender Sehwag |
K. K. Jiyaz |
Yogesh Golwalkar |
Kona Srikar Bharat |
Beuran Hendricks |
Manoj Tiwary |
George Bailey |
Angelo Mathews |
Thisara Perera |
Gurinder Sandhu |
|
Marcus Stoinis |
|
Kolkata Knight Riders |
Mumbai Indians |
Veer Pratap Singh |
Aditya Tare |
Aditya Garhwal |
Abhimanyu Mithun |
K.C Cariappa |
Pawan Suyal |
Sumit Narwal |
Pragyan Ojha |
Vaibhav Rawal |
Aiden Blizzard |
Patrick Cummins |
Aaron Finch |
Ryan ten Doeschate |
Alex Hales |
James Neesham |
Ben Hilfenhaus |
Azhar Mahmood |
Colin Munro |
Johan Botha |
Josh Hazlewood |
Royal Challengers Bangalore |
Sunrisers Hyderabad |
Vijay Zol |
Chama Milind |
Ashok Dinda |
Gade Hanuma Vihari |
Dinesh Karthik |
Ishant Sharma |
Iqbal Abdullah |
Laxmi Ratan Shukla |
Jalaj Saxena |
Prasanth Padmanabhan |
Manvinder Bisla |
Praveen Kumar |
Sandeep Warrier |
Dale Steyn |
Shishir Bhavane |
Kevin Pietersen |
Subramaniam Badrinath |
Ravi Bopara |
Yogesh Takawale |
|
Nic Maddinson |
|
Darren Sammy |
|
Rilee Rossouw |
|
Sean Abbott |
|