The 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) is all set to be played in the month of April-May. The mini IPL 2021 auction is also postponed and now it is being speculated that it will take place on February 18.
Earlier it was reported that IPL auctions will be held on 11th February but now as per reports of InsideSport, the mini-auction will be postponed by a week and is now likely to held on 18th or 19th Feb.
The IPL Governing Council (GC) will announce the fresh date of auctions in the next few days. Other than the dates, BCCI is also yet to decide the venue for the IPL auctions.
“IPL auctions will now be held in the 3rd week of February. The final date, venue will be confirmed in the next few days”, confirmed senior BCCI official as per InsideSport.
Ahead of the auction, the eight franchises have announced a list of retained and released players with some interesting takeaways.
The biggest surprise was the release of Rajasthan Royals (RR) captain Steve Smith, who struggled to perform with the bat in IPL 2020.
The eight IPL franchises will have 196.6 crores to spend at IPL auctions. As the window to retain and release players ended on Wednesday, IPL franchises retained 139 players for 483.39 Cr. The IPL franchises released 57 players from the existing squads and will now have 196.6 Crore to spend at the IPL 2021 auctions.
IPL 2021: Squad Size, Salary Cap, Available Slots
| Franchise | No. of Players | No. of overseas players | Total money spent(Rs.) | Salary Cap available (Rs.) | Available Slots | Overseas Slots |
| CSK | 18 | 7 | 62.10 | 22.90 | 7 | 1 |
| DC | 19 | 6 | 72.0982 | 12.9018 | 6 | 2 |
| KXIP | 16 | 3 | 31.80 | 53.20 | 9 | 5 |
| KKR | 17 | 6 | 74.25 | 10.75 | 8 | 2 |
| MI | 18 | 4 | 69.65 | 15.35 | 7 | 4 |
| RR | 17 | 5 | 50.15 | 34.85 | 8 | 3 |
| RCB | 12 | 4 | 49.10 | 35.90 | 13 | 4 |
| SRH | 22 | 7 | 74.25 | 10.75 | 3 | 1 |
| Total | 139 | 42 | 483.39 | 196.60 | 61 | 22 |
List of All The Retained & Released Players By The Eight Franchises
Chennai Super Kings
Retained Players: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, KM Asif, Deepak Chahar, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, N Jagadeesan, Karn Sharma, Lungi Ngidi, Mitchell Santner, Ravindra Jadeja, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shardul Thakur, Sam Curran, Josh Hazlewood, R Sai Kishore
Released Players: Kedar Jadhav, Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Monu Singh, Shane Watson
Delhi Capitals
Retained Players: Shreyas Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Ishant Sharma, Kagiso Rabada, Prithvi Shaw, R Ashwin, Rishabh Pant, Shikhar Dhawan, Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Lalit Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Daniel Sams, Pravin Dubey, Chris Woakes
Released Players: Alex Carey, Keemo Paul, Tushar Deshpande, Sandeep Lamichhane, Mohit Sharma, Jason Roy
Kings XI Punjab
Retained Players: KL Rahul, Arshdeep Singh, Chris Gayle, Darshan Nalkande, Harpreet Brar, Mandeep Singh, Mayank Agarwal, Mohd. Shami, M Ashwin, Nicholas Pooran, Sarfaraz Khan, Deepak Hooda, Ishan Porel, Ravi Bishnoi, Chris Jordan, Prabhsimran Singh
Released Players: Glenn Maxwell, Sheldon Cottrell, Mujeeb Zadran, Hardus Viljoen, James Neesham, Krishnappa Gowtham, Karun Nair, Jagadeesha Suchith, Tejinder Singh Dhillon
Kolkata Knight Riders
Retained Players: Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Tim Seifert
Released Players: Chris Green, Harry Gurney, M Siddharth, Nikhil Naik, Siddhesh Lad, Tom Banton
Mumbai Indians
Retained Players: Rohit Sharma, Aditya Tare, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Dhawal Kulkarni, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Jasprit Bumrah, Jayant Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Quinton de Kock, Rahul Chahar, Suryakumar Yadav, Trent Boult, Chris Lynn, Saurabh Tiwary, Mohsin Khan
Released Players: Prince Balwant Rai, Digvijay Deshmukh, Lasith Malinga, Nathan Coulter-Nile, James Pattinson, Sherfane Rutherford, Mitchell McCleneghan
Rajasthan Royals
Retained Players: Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Mahipal Lomror, Manan Vohra, Mayank Markande, Rahul Tewatia, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Robin Uthappa, Jaydev Unadkat, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, Kartik Tyagi, David Miller, Andrew Tye
Released Players: Steve Smith, Akash Singh, Anirudha Joshi, Ankit Rajpoot, Oshane Thomas, Shashank Singh, Tom Curran, Varun Aaron
Royal Challengers Bangalore
Retained Players: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal, Md. Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Joshua Phillipe, Pavan Deshpande, Shahbaz Ahmed, Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson
Released Players: Chris Morris, Shivam Dube, Aaron Finch, Umesh Yadav, Dale Steyn, Moeen Ali, Parthiv Patel, Pawan Negi, Isuru Udana, Gurkeerat Mann
Sunrisers Hyderabad
Retained Players: David Warner, Abhishek Sharma, Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jonny Bairstow, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Vijay Shankar, Wriddhiman Saha, Virat Singh, Priyam Garg, Mitchell Marsh, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad
Released Players: Billy Stanlake, Sandeep Bavanaka, Fabian Allen, Sanjay Yadav, Prithviraj Yarra