IPL 2022: List of players released by Royal Challengers Bangalore

While the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) concluded just over a month ago, preparations for the 2022 season are underway. On Tuesday (November 30), all eight existing franchises announced the list of their retained players. With a mega auction taking place ahead of the next edition, teams were allowed to retain a maximum of just four players, out of which only two can be foreigners.

As most of the sides are studded with T20 stalwarts, selecting the retained players would have been tough. Not to forget, franchises had INR 42 crore, from their team purse of INR 90 crore, available to make the retentions. While several franchises used all of their four retention cards, some opted to save money for the bidding event.

As far as Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) are concerned, they decided to go with three players in Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, and Mohammed Siraj. With Kohli and Maxwell being stalwarts of this format, their retention was on the cards. However, the suspense was on other retained players. The retirement of AB de Villiers made the selection hassle a bit easier for RCB as he would have featured in the retention list.

RCB didn’t retain Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal

However, the side still had some prominent names in Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj and Yuzvendra Chahal, who are Team India regulars now. Quite surprisingly, RCB didn’t use all of their retention cards as Siraj was their third and last retention.

It has to be noted that teams opted to retain four players gave INR 16, 12, 8 and 6 crore to their first second, third and fourth player respectively. With Chahal reportedly not wanting to be the side’s third or fourth retention, his name didn’t come out in the list.

Notably, Harshal, with 32 wickets, was the highest wicket-taker in IPL 2021. Hence, his released also surprised many. Meanwhile, RCB now have INR 57 crore left in their purse to buy players in the mega auction.

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Retained Players: Virat Kohli (Rs 15 crore), Glenn Maxwell (Rs 11 crore), Mohammed Siraj (Rs 7 crore)

Released Players: Devdutt Padikkal, Sachin Baby, Rajat Patidar, Suyash Prabhudessai, Tim David, Pavan Deshpande, Daniel Christian, Shahbaz Ahmed, AB de Villiers (retired), KS Bharat, Mohammed Azharudeen, Harshal Patel, Kyle Jamieson, Navdeep Saini, Yuzvendra Chahal, George Garton, Akash Deep

Purse Remaining: INR 57 crore