The BCCI’s decision to tweak the player retention rules and reintroduce the Right to Match (RTM) option was aimed at bringing some of the big names back to the mega auction table.

Less than 24 hours before the IPL communicates the list of players retained, it is almost certain that KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Mitchell Starc, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj, Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone and Andre Russell will enter the auction pool inviting intense bidding among the 10 franchises.

There’s still no clarity on Delhi Capitals captain Rishabh Pant. Sources told The Telegraph that the wicketkeeper-batter hasn’t reached an agreement with the franchise and “a lot of bargaining” was still going on.

Delhi Capitals, currently run by Kiran Kumar Grandhi of GMR, have brought in Hemang Badani as head coach and Venugopal Rao as director of cricket for IPL 2025 replacing Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly, respectively. Both the appointments were against Pant’s wishes who is learnt to have been rooting for Sourav and a star former India all-rounder.

It seems like the Pant drama will continue till Thursday’s 5.30pm deadline. Pant is believed to have made some demands that GMR is not willing to accept.

Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, Jake Fraser-McGurk and Abishek Porel (uncapped) are likely to be their retained players.

As reported by The Telegraph, Kolkata Knight Riders have decided to let go their IPL-winning captain Shreyas and star all-rounder Russell. Their likely list of retentions includes Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Harshit Rana (uncapped). The fifth retention could be a toss-up between uncapped Ramandeep Singh and Phil Salt. They want to keep a slot empty and use the RTM option to buy someone like Russell back into the fold.

Former champions CSK and Mumbai Indians (MI)have almost finalised their retentions. CSK though are still awaiting “one final meeting” with head coach Stephen Fleming.

Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (uncapped) are the likely players to continue. Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra were also discussed.

MI have zeroed in on Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Tilak Varma and Naman Dhir (uncapped) in their list of chosen players.

RCB claim that they have convinced Virat Kohli to be back as captain after deciding to release Faf du Plessis. The other retentions include Rajat Patidar and Yash Dayal (uncapped).

Gujarat Titans’ retentions will have Rashid Khan, Shubman Gill, Sai Sudarshan besides uncapped Rahul Tewatia and Shahrukh Khan.

IPL retention: 4.30pm on JioCinema