Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Aaron Finch, Angelo Matthews, Dinesh Karthik, Dale Steyn, Ishant Sharma and Kevin Pietersen are some of the big names released by their Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises as the deadline for the first trading window closed on Thursday. A total of 101 players were retained, while 61 were let go by the six franchises. Ahead of the February auction teams made some interesting changes to their squads.
Here is the list of top players that were released and retained by the six IPL teams.
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Delhi Daredevils
Retained: Amit Mishra, Mohammad Shami, Shreyas Iyer, Zaheer Khan, Albie Morkel, Imran Tahir, Jean-Paul Duminy, Quinton de Kock.
Released: Yuvraj Singh, Manoj Tiwary, Angelo Mathews.
Kings XI Punjab
Retained : Axar Patel, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Manan Vohra, Murali Vijay, Rishi Dhawan, Sandeep Sharma, Shardul Thakur, Wriddhiman Saha, David Miller, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Johnson, Shaun Marsh.
Released: Virender Sehwag, George Bailey, Thisara Perera.
Kolkata Knight Riders
Retained: Gautam Gambhir, Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey, Piyush Chawla, Robin Uthappa, Suryakumar Yadav, Umesh Yadav, Yusuf Pathan, Andre Russell, Brad Hogg, Morne Morkel, Shakib Al Hasan, Sunil Narine.
Released: C Cariappa, Patrick Cummins, Ryan ten Doeschate, Azhar Mahmood, James Neesham.
Mumbai Indians
Retained: Ambati Rayudu, Harbhajan Singh, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Parthiv Patel, R Vinay Kumar, Rohit Sharma, Unmukt Chand, Keiron Pollard, Lasith Malinga, Lendl Simmons.
Released: Aditya Tare, Abhimanyu Mithun, Pragyan Ojha, Aaron Finch, Alex Hales, Ben Hilfenhaus, Josh Hazlewood.
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Retained: Sarfaraz Khan, Mandeep Singh, Varun Aaron, Virat Kohli, AB de Villers, Chris Gayle, Mitchell Starc.
Released: Vijay Zol, Ashok Dinda, Dinesh Karthik, Iqbal Abdullah, Jalaj Saxena, S Badrinath, Manvinder Bisla, Sean Abbott, Darren Sammy.
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Retained: Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Karn Sharma, KL Rahul, Naman Ojha, Parvez Rasool, Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner, Eoin Morgan, Kane Williamson, Trent Boult.
Released: Ishant Sharma, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Praveen Kumar, Dale Steyn, Kevin Pietersen, Ravi Bopara.