Retained players in IPL-5

After the IPL acution that took place last week, several players have been bought to add strength to the last year’s teams, apart from players added through transfers before the auction took place. Apart from the transferred and the newly bought players, there were only 3 players to have been retained by their respected franchises after having been drafted in the last year’s edition as replacements for injured players.

Chris Gayle

On being retained by the team, Gayle said, “To me, Bangalore has been a home away from home. I wanted to continue playing for them, and it turned out that they were keen to retain my services.” Chris Gayle has been retained for the next 2 seasons of the IPL, by the Royal Challengers Bangalore for $550,000. A player like Chris Gayle is always an asset to any team, especially given how he played such an important role in winning more than just one game for RCB last season – his loss would have been a costly one to any team. Having gone unsold in the IPL auction last year, he was picked by the team for $650,000 as a replacement to the injured Dirk Nannes and turned out to be among the highest run-accumulators in the tournament – scoring two centuries, three half-centuries and picking up eight wickets. Quite a few teams were keen on picking Gayle for their teams, but teams who signed players as replacement last year had first rights to their services this year, which RCB took full advantage of and retained their key man.

Sourav Ganguly

Sourav Ganguly, who joined the Pune Warriors last year as a replacement for Ashish Nehra, has been retained for $400,000 – his base price that he was bought for last year. In the current scenario however, the participation of the team is in doubt after the Sahara Group withdrew their support towards the IPL and the BCCI. Ganguly, in this year’s edition was to play a dual role – of a player and a mentor, since the team would have been without their previous head coach – Geoff Marsh.

The team had a poor season to their inaugural season last year and ended up last but one,in the table. Ganguly had been unsold in last year’s auction and didnt make much of an impact after joining the Warriors. But, with his expanded role this time, much was expected of him, but with the team’s participation in doubt, it seems a disappointing end to the whole anticipation towards the IPL given that a few games were scheduled to be held in Pune, this year.

David Miller

Although David Miller is not much of a known character un the cricketing world yet and has never made his IPL debut, he still has been retained at his base price of $100,000 by Kings XI Punjab for the next 2 seasons. Miller was brought in as a replacement for Dimitri Mascarenhas but didn’t get to play a game last season. He is a South African middle order batsman who has been in and out of the national side; but has note-worthily he scored a half-century against Australia in the 2011 series. KXIP sold Dinesh Kartik to Mumbai Indians and bought in R. Sathish instead. Miller would’ve gone into the pool of 144 players if he had not been retained by KXIP.

Miller’s T20 record for the South African franchise he plays for – the Dolphins, is fairly decent. He averages 31.30 with a strike-rate of 127.75. Having played for the English county in 2011 – Durham, he scored 212 runs at an average of 26.50. How he will fare in the IPL might influence his selection for South Africa in future, given that he did not make the squad to play the series against Sri Lanka despite the half-century he scored against Australia.