The fate of many players will be decided todayImage Credit source: PTI
The second day of the test match between India and South Africa will be held on Saturday 15th November at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. Team India will look to take its innings forward and the action will start at 9.30 am. Cricket fans will have their eyes on this. But the truth is that the fans will be waiting the most for Saturday evening because after several days of speculations, rumors and some official announcements, the player retention for the IPL 2026 season will be announced on November 15. One by one, all the 10 franchises will reveal the names of the players they will retain and those they will release.
The IPL 2026 player retention deadline is coming to an end on Saturday, 15th November. In such a situation, at 5 pm, the current champion Royal Challengers Bangalore and last season’s lagging team Chennai Super Kings will put a break on the restlessness and anxiety of their fans. The players who have been retained and those who are being released will obviously be aware of this, but for the fans, many of these names can be heartbreaking. The names of all the players will be revealed in a special program on Star Sports on Saturday.
What are all the rules of retention?
The first season of the current IPL cycle was played only in 2025 and now IPL 2026 will be the second season of this 3-year cycle. That is, this is the second season after the mega auction held before the 2025 season, hence this time a mini auction is to be held, the date of which has not been announced yet. In such a situation, this time the rules related to retention will be completely different from the mega auction season. This time all the franchises have the freedom to retain as many players as possible.
Before the mega auction, every team had the opportunity to retain only a maximum of 5 or 6 players, but this time there is no such restriction. In such a situation, like every mini auction season, this time too not many players will be released. However, this time also the price of all the players who will be released will be added to the auction purse of that franchise. At the same time, if any player gets money in exchange for trading, then that will also be added to the auction purse.
Movement in the trading window before retention
This time, before the retention, there was a lot of excitement regarding the trade of many players. The most talked about thing was the trade of Sanju Samson and Ravindra Jadeja-Sam Curran between Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings. However, it was not officially announced before the deadline. But the trade of some players definitely got official approval. The first name in this was Shardul Thakur, who was traded by Mumbai Indians to Lucknow Super Giants for Rs 2 crores.
Mumbai also executed the trade with Gujarat Titans (GT) and included Sharfan Rutherford in their squad, paying Rs 2.6 crore to GT. Apart from these, some trades like Mohammed Shami (SRH to LSG), Arjun Tendulkar (MI to LSG), Mayank Markande (KKR to MI) can also be executed on Saturday.
These big names can be released
If we talk about the players to be released, there is a lot of discussion about many big names. Kolkata Knight Riders can release Venkatesh Iyer (23.75 crores), the third most expensive player of the last mega auction. At the same time, defending champion RCB can also leave a star like Liam Livingston.
Last season’s worst team CSK may release some big players like Rachin Ravindra, Devon Conway, while Glenn Maxwell may once again be released from Punjab Kings. On the other hand, players like Mahish Teekshana and Wanindu Hasaranga may leave from Rajasthan Royals, while T Natarajan and Jake Fraser McGurk may depart from Delhi Capitals.