India's World Cup hero Yuvraj Singh (in pic), who was the most expensive player during the IPl-7 auctions with a purse of Rs 14 crore, has been released by his franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore as the trading window for the next edition of the cricket league ended on Monday.
Apart from Yuvraj, the biggest name to be released by any franchise was Delhi Daredevils' captain of last season Kevin Pietersen and their costliest player Dinesh Karthik, who grabbed eyeballs after being picked for a whopping Rs12.5 crore.
Some of the other big names that were released include veteran pacer Zaheer Khan by Mumbai Indians while Test opener Murali Vijay did not find his name in the Delhi set-up as the franchise released as many as 13 players.
Among other veterans, Harbhajan Singh and Virender Sehwag have been retained by their respective franchises Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab.
Delhi Daredevils’ Chief Executive Officer Hemant Dua confirmed the development and also explained the reason for this decision by the management. Daredevils will go into the auction with a purse of Rs41 crore.
“Yes, we have submitted our list of releases to the IPl governing council and I can confirm that we have released Kevin Pietersen, Dinesh Karthik and Murali Vijay among the marquee players. We have only retained 11 players from the last season of IPl,” Dua said on Monday.
Among the eight franchises, the least released players are from Chennai Super Kings, which has only got rid of Ben Hilfenhaus, John Hastings, Vijay Shankar and David Hussey.
Apart from Daredevils, the other team that has released maximum number of players is Sunrisers Hyderabad which has given the boot to 10 players.
Daredevils will go into the auction with a purse of Rs41 crore while RCB and Sunrisers will have Rs21.5 crore and Rs21 crore respectively.
Sunrisers have released Irfan Pathan, who has remained injured for the better part of this year but it was surprising to find Darren Sammy and Aaron Finch's released.
The least amount of money will be with CSK with only Rs5 crore purse while MI have the second lowest purse at Rs10 crore.