IPL 2020: 5 Player releases that will be regretted by IPL franchises

The IPL auction for the 13th season is set to take place on 19th December in Kolkata. After the closing of the trading window, all the franchises have submitted the final list of the retained and released players. The releasing of players increases the purse of the team and gives them an opportunity to build the side accordingly at the auction.

Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad have kept their core intact and would look to fill up the minor pieces missing. On the other hand, Bangalore and Punjab, as expected, have gone for a revamp by releasing some big names in the quest to end their title drought. Bangalore has released 12 players and 5 have been released by Hyderabad, the most and the least, respectively.

Players have been let go because of their poor form last season, aging, injury issues or in case of Shakib- a one-year ban. While most of the decisions seem reasonable, some raised eyebrows. Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Yusuf Pathan are some names who their former owners regret releasing.

Here we look at 5 players that the franchises might regret releasing later.

1. Rahul Tripathi

Rahul Tripathi was one of the rising stars in IPL 2017. Opening the batting for Rising Pune Supergiant, Tripathi scored 391 runs at a strike rate of 146 with a best of 93 against Kolkata. Next year, the Rajasthan Royals bought him for a whopping 3.4 crores.

But things at Rajasthan didn’t go quite well for the Maharashtra opener. With the presence of Buttler, Rahane, Samson, and Smith, Tripathi was shoved down the order to play the role of a finisher. He had a couple of dismaying seasons with the Royals batting down the order. In 2018 he scored 226 runs at a strike rate of 135, but things went south for Tripathi last season. His strike rate dropped to 119 and was dropped for half of the matches by the Royals.

The right-hander remained underutilized in the middle order. Opening the batting, he averages 31 at a strike rate of 140, while at number 5 and 6, his average halves and strike rate hovers around 110. Clearly, he is at his best at the top of the order. Now that he is back in the auction pool, teams will certainly bid for him and he would be hoping to revive his career.