The Indian Premier League (IPL) fever has taken over the country within one week after India's crushing loss in the World Cup 2023 final against Australia. Perhaps, on Sunday (November 26) even the second T20I between India and Australia went under the radar with IPL retention day taking over all the buzz.
All 10 teams announceds their list of retained and released players as some of the big players are set to come into the auction for IPL 2024. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) made a surprise decision to release Australia pacer Josh Hazlewood despite his brilliant show in the ODI World Cup in India where he picked 16 wickets. Moreover, across the two season of IPL, the Aussie pacer accounted for 23 scalps at an average of 19.69.
But he could play only three matches in IPL 2023 due to achilles heel injury. Having said that, releasing a bowler like Hazlewood really surprised many but RCB's new head coach Andy Flower explained the reason for the same soon after the franchise announced the list. Flower cleared that Hazlewood and his wife are expecting a baby in March 2024 and is unlikely to be available at least for the first half of the next season.
"Josh Hazlewood…very pleasingly, has a baby on the way, due in March. So Josh won’t be with us, certainly not for the first half of the season," Flower said in a video posted by RCB on Twitter.
Meanwhile, there is a report that RCB have acquired Cameron Green in an all-cash trade from Mumbai Indians. However, neither IPL nor BCCI has yet released an official statement on the same.
Retained: Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar (trade), Vyshak Vijaykumar, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar
Released: Wanindu Hasaranga, Harshal Patel, Josh Hazlewood, Finn Allen, Michael Bracewell, David Willey, Wayne Parnell, Sonu Yadav, Avinash Singh, Siddharth Kaul, Kedar Jadhav
