IPL 2025: Kolkata Knight Riders retained players, released players and purse remaining ahead of mega auction

Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders previously communicated to the BCCI officials about their desire to retain the majority of the players. During that meeting on July 31, Sunrisers Hyderabad management also communicated the same but the IPL’s apex council allowed each team to retain a maximum of six players, out of which, at least one had to be an uncapped Indian cricketer. 

KKR had difficulty in sorting out their retentions as the goal was to keep the core intact. Since the BCCI made the IPL retention rule official, the management had several conversations with the players, trying to understand their thought processes and at what amount would they be interested in being retained.

As per the BCCI's retention policy, the first retention slot was set for INR 18 crore, followed by INR 14 crore and INR 11 crore for the second and third retentions respectively. The fourth and fifth retention slots were set for INR 18 crore and the fifth INR 14 crore while the uncapped player could be retained for INR 4 crore. 

With Harshit Rana not making his debut, it was clear that the team management would register him as an uncapped player but there were serious doubts on others, particularly captain Shreyas Iyer and Andre Russell.

Multiple reports suggested that KKR would be parting ways with captain Iyer and that eventually proved true. The franchise learned that the player was made an offer by two other franchises and he decided to make himself available in the auction. The owners in the end tried their best to communicate with Iyer with the hope of making him stay but that didn’t happen.

In the end, the all-rounder was honoured with KKR’s fourth retention for INR 12 crore. Apart from that, the franchise also retained Rinku Singh for INR 13 crore, Sunil Narine for INR 12 crore, Rana for INR 4 crore and Ramandeep Singh for INR 4 crore. The last two have been registered as uncapped players.