Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have stuck to their guns in retaining their core group even if that meant flushing out INR 75 crore from the purse of INR 120 crore even before the mega auction. Sunrisers have retained their skipper Pat Cummins, his Australian compatriot Travis Head, South African wicketkeeper batter Heinrich Klaasen and a couple of Indian stars Abhishek Sharma and Nitish Kumar Reddy. Klaasen has been handed the top retention at a whopping amount of INR 23 crore.
Reddy playing the Bangladesh T20 series and getting his national cap meant that the Sunrisers had to rejig their plans as earlier the Andhra all-rounder could have been retained as an uncapped player. However, both parties came to a negotiation and Reddy was indeed ready to be retained for INR 6 crore. Since SRH were retaining all five capped players, they could allocate those 75 crore rupees as they wished, which is exactly what they did.
With the season they had in 2024, SRH couldn't afford to let go the bash brothers - Head and Abhishek - who broke batting records for fun, whether it was sixes, team score, powerplay, they didn't leave any chance to smash the opposition.
Retaining Cummins ahead of what might possibly a WTC final season for Australia could be tricky for Sunrisers but if a captain has led you to a final after four years, he was meant to stay. Similarly with Reddy, who with his 34-ball 74 in Delhi showed what he is capable of, especially while batting at No 4.
SRH's retention list - Heinrich Klaasen (INR 23cr), Pat Cummins (INR 18cr), Abhishek Sharma (INR 14cr), Travis Head (INR 14cr), Nitish Kumar Reddy (INR 6cr),
Players released by SRH: Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Abdul Samad, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik, Anmolpreet Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Upendra Yadav, Sanvir Singh, Mayank Markande, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan, Aiden Markram, Glenn Phillips, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Marco Jansen, Wanindu Hasaranga, Vijayakanth Viyaskanth
