IPL 2019: 3 players who are lucky to be retained

IPL franchises announced the final list of players that they retained and released for the 2019 Indian Premier League campaign.

More than 50 players were released overall, including some big names such as Glenn Maxwell, Yuvraj Singh, Jaydev Unadkat, Gautam Gambhir, Pat Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, Wriddhiman Saha, Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Mitchell Starc, Mustafizur Rahman and Chris Woakes.

However, there are a number of players who failed to perform last season and still got retained by their respective franchises ahead of the 12th edition of the IPL.

On this note, here is the list of three retained players who are lucky to be still a part of their franchise.

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#1 Kieron Pollard

Kieron Pollard struggled with his performances last season

Kieron Pollard was one of the best all-rounders in the world a few years back and performed consistently ever since he joined Mumbai Indians in 2010.

The 31-year-old played many match-winning knocks for the team and helped the Mumbai based team win three IPL titles. Pollard played 132 IPL games thus far, scoring 1699 runs at an average of 28.13 with the strike rate of 145.73. He also proved to be handy with the ball and recorded 56 IPL wickets to his name.

However, there was a huge downfall in his performances during the last season and he looked like a shadow of his former self. The West Indies international played nine IPL games in 2018 and contributed just 133 runs at an average of 19.00 with a strike rate of 133.00.

His inability to perform exposed MI's middle order a number of times last season, which subsequently cost them many vital points. He was released by the PSL team, Multan Sultans following his poor performances in the PSL's last edition. Mumbai Indians' decision to retain him came as a surprise to many fans.

Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh is moving towards the end of his career.

One of the most successful spinners of his generation, Harbhajan Singh was bought by Chennai Super Kings in the auction last year.

The Punjab-born spinner was a consistent performer for Mumbai Indians during his ten-year stay with the franchise and they won three IPL titles. He played 149 IPL matches and registered 134 wickets in the course of his career.

However, Bhajji was not up to his usual best last year and failed to replicate his Mumbai Indians form with his new franchise. He played 13 games last year and managed to take only seven wickets. He leaked 8.48 runs per over, which is way above his average economy rate of 7.05. While he is usually a decent performer with the bat, he managed to score just 29 runs last season.

The veteran spinner is moving towards the end of a wonderful career and is lucky to be retained by CSK.

#3 Manish Pandey

Manish Pandey struggled last season.

Sunrisers Hyderabad enjoyed a successful IPL 2018 campaign and made it to the finals of the tournament for the second time in three years. However, most of their success was down to the brilliant performances of their top order batsmen and they struggled to keep the scoreboard ticking once their top order collapsed.

The Hyderabad based team spent a huge amount of ₹11 crore to sign Manish Pandey in the Auction to bolster their middle order but the Nanital born batsmen struggled to perform and proved to be an expensive mistake by the team.

Manish Pandey was a consistent performer during his three-year stay with Kolkata Knight Riders and won the IPL trophy in 2014. However, he failed to replicate those performances with SRH and scored 284 runs in 15 matches at an average of 25.81 with an unimpressive strike rate of 115.41.

The former KKR player was expected to be released into the auction by SRH but Shikhar Dhawan's trade to Delhi Daredevils left the team short in the batting department and he ended up staying with SRH.