NEW DELHI: It’s a happy place to be in when you have India’s current Test and ODI captain, T20I captain, former T20I captain and world’s leading quick on the roster. The situation, however, becomes a headache when tough retention calls are to be taken before preparing for the battle on the auction table.
Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav are the hottest properties in the Indian Premier League and the new IPL retention rules allow five-time champions Mumbai Indians (MI) a good shot at retaining them at a price which would make it a win-win situation for the franchise and players.
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has allowed teams to retain as many as six players but it would burn a major hole in the salary purse. The first three retentions (capped players) have been kept at Rs 18 crores, Rs 14 crores and Rs 11 crores respectively while the next two would cost the IPL franchises Rs 18 crores and Rs 14 crores.
A quick glance at the IPL squads from last edition and one can guesstimate that not many teams would look to go beyond three retentions and opt for the Right To Match (RTM) option for their remaining picks.
Often there have been ego battles in teams on who is going to be the top retained player but the new rules have a provision to take care of that too.
Reportedly, there has been a similar ego battle brewing at the Mumbai Indians because there is no dearth of star power in the marquee players mentioned above. The new rules now allow the franchise to retain all four of them and keep the price tag of two set of players the same.
For instance, both Hardik and Bumrah can get Rs 18 crore each while Rohit and Surya can be retained at Rs 14 crore each.
This also opens up an opportunity for the IPL giants to retain one of Ishan Kishan and Tilak Verma as their third pick at Rs 11 crores and then explore the possibility of retaining either an uncapped player or exercising the RTM card during the auction.
The five retentions, though, would come at a premium as it would eat up bulk of their salary purse of Rs 120 crores but also allow them to retain a star-studded core and use the remaining Rs 45 crores to fill in the blanks on the table.
Will other teams look to go this way?
Both Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) were very vocal about wanting more retentions during the meet between franchise owners and BCCI top brass earlier this year. The two teams have got more retentions but they could well make use of the RTMs instead of the fourth and fifth player retention option.
It’s a no-brainer that SRH would want to retain services of Pat Cummins, Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head, and would be happy to use Rs. 43 crores from their purse for their star players but will they use the fourth and fifth player retentions to get someone like Heinrich Klaasen? Looks very unlikely they will shell out 18 or 14 crores.
Using the RTM would make more sense for them and they would keep a close eye on the upcoming T20I series between India and Bangladesh as their young all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy, who had an impressive debut season, is in the squad and an India cap will affect auction dynamics for the franchise.
Another team which would be keenly following the Bangladesh T20Is are KKR as Harshit Rana, one of their star players last season, could well get his India cap and it would pose a retention headache for his IPL side. KKR have established a strong core and it delivered the goods under mentor Gautam Gambhir and captain Shreyas Iyer last season.
They have the specialists Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy in the ranks but will the three-time champions exhaust most of their purse in the five retentions? A three-retention approach with smart use of RTMs seems a more pragmatic plan.
It will not come as a surprise if teams like Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Titans, Lucknow Supergiants and Punjab Kings opt for a similar strategy, and even Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings would want to go into the mega auction with a decent purse to build a squad for the future.
The top three picks for every team is more or less straightforward but it’s the twist in the price tags of fourth and fifth picks, and the modified use of RTMs, which would require the teams to exercise shrewd acumen as they enter what promises to be an exciting cycle of the IPL.