IPL: 5 Unexpected player releases which might take place on November 15

There are about five months more to go for the 13th edition of the IPL and there’s already a buzz. One reason is that the auction is only a little over a month away. Another reason is that the retention and the released players’ list is going to come out on the 15th of November.

There is quite a bit of activity around the teams. The support staff of a few teams has changed and players have been traded as well. Ravichandran Ashwin is now a part of the Delhi Capitals. In return, Kings XI Punjab have got Jagadeesha Suchith and an additional INR 1.5 crore. Sherfane Rutherford and Mayank Markande have been traded as well with the former going to Mumbai Indians and the latter going to Delhi Capitals.

There’s less than a week to go for the player list to come out. Thus, here we look at five unexpected things that might happen when players release or retain players ahead of the auctions.

1. KKR releasing Robin Uthappa

It was in 2014 that the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bought Robin Uthappa and he’s been one of the premier stars. He scored consistently for four seasons and hence, was retained again in 2018 (Right To Match) in the auctions. However, after scoring more than 350 runs for five successive seasons, Uthappa had a big lull in 2019.

The Karnataka batsman could score 282 runs in the season. It’s not the runs but the approach and the intent that Uthappa showed that was concerning. He did start the season well and had scored 172 runs after the first five games at a strike-rate of 138.71. But his season went downhill after that.

He struggled big time and sucked the momentum out of the innings most of the times he batted which costed KKR. He had scores of 28 off 30, 9 off 20 and 40 off 47 which underlines his struggles. Uthappa’s recent form in the Indian domestic season hasn’t been great either. Thus, we may well see a well-known KKR face like Uthappa get released this time around.