IPL 2025 : Top Franchises Retain Star Players As Klaasen Breaks Record

The cash-rich and highly popular Indian Premier League often springs up numerous surprises every time the window for retentions open and the mega auction starts rolling. Ahead of the 2025 season, all ten franchises have announced their list of retentions and revealed how much purse they are left with before the much awaited mega auction that will decide the fate of so many players.

While top franchises like Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Chennai Superstar Kings and Sun Risers Hyderabad retained their top players, there are quite a few surprises in store for IPL fans. Capped players like KL Rahul, Rishab Pant and Shreyas Iyer, who are tipped to lead Team India from the front in different formats after Kohli and Rohit Sharma, were not retained by their respective owners and will enter the auction.

Star player Virat Kohli has been retained by Royal Challengers Bengaluru for Rs 21 crore which is bigger price than his previous revord of 17 Crores. But his record was short-lived as the highest retention amount in IPL history has been broken by Heinrich Klaasen. The wicketkeeper-batter has been retained by SunRisers Hyderabad for a staggering sum of Rs 23 crore, making him the costliest player ever retained in the tournament.

Among the other highlights was Mumbai Indians releasing Ishan Kishan and Chennai Super Kings retaining MS Dhoni as an uncapped player for Rs 4 crore.

Mumbai Indians, on the other hand, kept their core intact by retaining all four of their capped players Suryakumar Yadav (16.35 Cr), Jasprit Bumrah (18 Cr), Rohit Sharma (16.30 Cr) and Hardik Pandya (16.35).

Punjab Kings retained just 2 players while KKR and Sunrisers Hyderabad retained six cricketers. Players like Pat Cummins (18 Cr), Abhishek Sharma (14 Cr), Travis Head (14 Cr) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (6 Cr) will represent SRH again in the upcoming season. Dashing national team opener Yashaswi Jaiswal was retained by Rajasthan for 18 Crores along with Sanju Samson for the same price.

Chennai Super Kings retained its core players like Ruturaj Gaikwad (18 Cr), Matheesha Pathirana (13 Cr), Shivam Dube (12 Cr), Ravindra Jadeja (18 Cr), MS Dhoni (4 Cr).

Besides Virat Kohli, RCB retained swashbuckling batsman Rajat Patidar for 11 Cr and reliable death bowler Yash Dayal for 5 Cr. 2024 champions Kolkata Knight Riders retained players Rinku Singh , Varun Chakravarthy , Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh.

Delhi Capitals held some its reliable stars like Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs and Abishek Porel. On the other hand, Gujarat Titans decided to retain Rashid Khan , Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan.