Reports | KL Rahul to lead the Lucknow franchise in the IPL 2022

The IPL 2022 will be preceded by mega auctions, as the two new franchises - Lucknow and Ahmedabad - have been added to the competition. The new auction rules suggest that the teams can retain only four players, and the new teams are yet to be allowed to draft players. The Lucknow-based team was bought by Sanjiv Goenka’s RPSG group on 7090 crores, and the Ahmedabad-based was bought by CVC Capitals for 5625 crores. The two teams have reportedly started to approach the players.

An Indian Express reports suggested of the existing eight teams such as Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians likely to retain their key players. Four-time champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are likely to retain their skipper MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sam Curran or Moeen Ali. The team has been speaking to Ali to come on board, while Dhoni had said that he would play his last game in Chennai, after their IPL 2021 triumph. 

“I have always planned my cricket. My last ODI in India was in Ranchi. Hopefully, my last T20 will be in Chennai. Whether it’s next year or in five years’ time, I don’t know,” Dhoni had said.

KKR is likely to retain Andre Russell and Sunil Narine alongside Varun Chakravarthy. They are yet to decide whether to retain Shubhman Gill or Venkatesh Iyer. Delhi Capitals will retain Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel, Anrich Nortje and Prithvi Shaw, while Shreyas Iyer is likely to part ways and could be a potential captaincy candidate for other franchise. 

It is understood that Mumbai Indians will retain Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah, and the while negotiations with Kieron Pollard are still on, the franchise wants to buy Suryakumar Yadav from the auction pool. There are high chances of Ishan Kishan too, being retained.