Pant, Shreyas Iyer being released to MI retaining the big four: 8 biggest surprises of IPL 2025 retentions

Rishabh Pant being let go by the Delhi Capitals, actually, was probably the biggest surprise during the retention announcement. Pant will be in huge demand at the mega auction given his captaincy skills for DC for three seasons and an Indian international player

Who leaves a title-winning captain? Well, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have! KKR CEO Venky Mysore hinted that Iyer didn't agree with the deal the franchise offered as reports suggested Shreyas Iyer wanted a deal in excess of INR 20 crore and that probably was the reason for the two parties parting ways

Mumbai Indians being able to retain all four of their Indian stars! Last season was probably an anomaly and with Mahela Jayawardene back at the helm, normalcy seems to have been restored at the Mumbai Indians with the seniors letting Jasprit Bumrah take the top retention spot with all three of Rohit, Hardik and Suryakumar Yadav settling for similar-priced spots at No 2, 3 and 4

Shubman Gill being the large-hearted! Shubman Gill gave up the top retention spot for Gujarat Titans to Rashid Khan, something which Sunrisers Hyderabad failed to do but the 2022 champions have. However, still from being draft by GT at INR 8 crore, it's still more than 100 per cent hike for the skipper

Did Rajasthan Royals overpay for Dhruv Jurel? RR have always leaned towards investing in Indian talent and that was visible in their retentions with Jurel and Riyan Parag getting INR 14 crore deals each. It was a bumper 6900 per cent hike for Jurel, no less!

RR had a lot of options in the likes of Jos Buttler, Trent Boult and Yuzvendra Chahal in terms of match-winners. However, not only they have exhausted a chance of keeping an RTM option for the auction but splurged a lot of amount before going into the two-day event with Shimron Hetmyer being the only overseas player in the roster

A lot of high-profile names settling for cheaper contracts! The likes of Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy settled for INR 4 crore and 6 crore contracts with KKR and SRH respectively. Both would have gotten a double-digit contract since they are on the heels of playing a Test match with Nitish having already played the T20Is. Rahul Tewatia also surprisingly took a pay cut of more than 50 per cent for GT

Punjab Kings letting go of Arshdeep Singh and retaining just two uncapped players! Obviously they would want to have Arshdeep back but a T20 World Cup winner and India's leading T20I bowler should have gotten what he'd have asked! Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh are good retentions at prices PBKS were able to retain and they might have given themselves probably a larger room to play with at the auction with a purse of INR 110.5 crore. Arshdeep playing for a different team in IPL 2025 will and should be a surprise