IPL 2019: 5 players who were not expected to be retained by their teams, but were retained anyway

The Indian Premier League fever has started as all the teams have announced the list of players they have retained and released for the upcoming seasons.

There have been plenty of surprises with the in's and out's of each team. While it is still possible for many teams to buy back their released players in the auction, it could be the end of the road for certain players in their IPL 2018 teams.

On that note, here is a list of five players who were expected to be released but were eventually retained by their teams.

#5 Stuart Binny

Stuart Binny was impressive when he started his IPL career with Rajasthan Royals. He got into the Indian team after that and was part of the national setup for some time.

However, the Karnataka all-rounder has been disappointing in the last three seasons of the IPL. He was picked up by Rajasthan Royals for the 2018 edition but he failed to produce any good performances for the team. In fact, his failure was one of the reasons for RR to lose the knockout match against KKR in IPL 2018.

It was expected that RR would release him and go for a younger all-rounder. However, the Jaipur based franchise has decided to stick with the veteran.

#4 Kieron Pollard

Pollard will continue his IPL career with Mumbai

Although Pollard gets to play more than 10 matches every season for Mumbai Indians, he succeeds only in a small percentage of them. That has been the situation since the past few seasons, and it was believed that Mumbai Indians would run out of patience with him.

Pollard was also dismal in the recently concluded India-Windies T20 series, and it was expected that he would play for a different team next year. However, the big West Indian will continue his IPL career with MI in 2019 too.

#3 Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh

Harbhajan Singh moved to Chennai Super Kings for the 2018 season after a 10-year successful association with Mumbai Indians. He had a successful season with CSK too, as he won yet another IPL title.

On the playing front though, Harbhajan was very inconsistent with his results. He was the third preferred spinner after Ravindra Jadeja and Karn Sharma.

In the domestic circuit too, Bhajji has lost his form and has started his commentary career. With new young spinners being produced, it was expected that CSK would let go of the veteran spinner.

However, Bhajji was a part of the retained list announced by CSK.

#2 Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes was one of the high-profile names who was expected to be released

Ben Stokes has failed to complete a full IPL season in the last two seasons owing to his international commitments. He was the costliest player in the previous auction but couldn't emulate his RPS performance with RR.

Stokes is expected to miss a part of the IPL as the World Cup is scheduled next year, and RR were accordingly expected to release him to the auctions.

However, they have decided to keep him for the upcoming season.

#1 Manish Pandey

Manish Pandey had a disappointing season with Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2018

Manish Pandey was bought for a whopping 11 crore in the previous auction to solve the ever persistent middle-order problems for Sunrisers Hyderabad. However, the Karnataka batsman failed to get going for the Hyderabad-based franchise, and has similarly poor outings with the national team too since then.

Hence, it was expected that the Hyderabad team would release the former KKR player into the auctions and then buy him back at a cheaper price. However, the unlikely exit of Shikar Dhawan meant that SRH had a shortage of quality Indian batsman in the team.

The think tank at SRH has therefore decided to give Pandey another chance next year. This could possibly turn out to be an excellent decision if Pandey finds his past form in 2019.