Chennai Super Kings, the two-time winners of the Indian Premier League (IPL) trophy, on Wednesday released six players of which one has retired from all forms of cricket while retaining 18 players ahead of IPL 2021 auction which is slated to take place next month.
The list of 18 retained players includes Suresh Raina, who had returned home after reaching the UAE for IPL 2020, owing to "personal reasons".
CSK's owner N Srinivasan told Outlook that Raina would “certainly realise what he is missing and certainly all the money he is going to lose”. However, he later said that the franchise would “stand by” him and “give him space”.
Raina, who had announced his retirement from international cricket on 15 August, on the same evening as that of Dhoni, returned to the 22 yards of space earlier this month with the start of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy where he scored a half-century in his first game but failed poorly in the subsequent matches.
Harbhajan had announced his departure earlier this morning with a tweet where he said, “As my contract comes to an end with @ChennaiIPL, playing for this team was a great experience..beautiful memories made &some great friends which I will remember fondly for years to come..Thank you @ChennaiIPL, management, staff and fans for a wonderful 2years.. All the best…”
Among the other released players, Chawla, who was the most expensive Indian player at the IPL 2020 auction, having roped in for INR 6.75 crore by CSK, finished with just six wickets in seven games at an economy of 9.09. Jadhav scored 62 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 93.93 while Vijay managed 32 runs at a strike rate of 74.41 in three innings.
Released players: Piyush Chawla, Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Monu Kumar Singh, Shane Watson (retired).
Retained players: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Faf du Plessis, Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran, Dwayne Bravo, Mitchell Santner, Shardul Thakur, Ruturaj Gaikwad, N Jagadeeshan, Imran Tahir, Deepak Chahar, Josh Hazlewood, Lungi Ngidi, Ambati Rayudu, Karn Sharma.
