Rating the IPL teams based on their player-releases ahead of IPL 2020 Auction

Ahead of the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), franchises have adopted various strategies before the auction. As long as the trade window was open, quite a few players were constantly moving around. Like they usually do, all eight franchises were smart about how they went about things ahead of the next season.

However, some of these moves were not as good as the others. For instance, teams released players whom they shouldn’t have and retained players who they should have released. It is understood that several parameters are considered before making any sort of a decision. But, a few decisions taken by some of the franchises seemed much better than what the other IPL franchises did.

Here are the ratings for the IPL teams based on their releases and retentions:

1. Mumbai Indians (MI) – 9/10

The Mumbai Indians (MI) have got great strategists and did a great job yet again. They have possibly run out of patience with Evin Lewis and thus released him. However, that decision won’t impact them as they are anyways not able to fit him in the top order. The likes of Rohit Sharma, Quinton de Kock and Suryakumar Yadav have done a great job so far.

Also, they released a number of bowlers including the likes of Jason Behrendorff, Alzarri Joseph and Adam Milne. Since MI has already got Lasith Malinga, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult and Mitchell McClenaghan in its ranks, there was possibly no requirement of so many options. With all these bowling options released, they can now go for an aggressive batsman who operates in the top order.

Moreover, Ben Cutting is gone now and they should look at more of an impactful all-rounder in the upcoming auction. Whatever they have done with the releases, Mumbai has retained its core and the side that will get on to the field in the upcoming edition should look almost the same as it was last season.