Dhoni To Play In His Favourite Chennai Jersey Again, RCB Will Retain Virat Kohli For IPL 2018

Keen to get their association with the Indian Premier League (IPL) off to a cracking start, Star Sports, the new broadcasters of the league, is set to conduct a glitzy, first of its kind ceremony here on Thursday to announce the IPL player retentions.

With the IPL auctions round the corner (on January 27 & 28 in Bangalore), there is a buzz around the event. The function will be attended by BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary, IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla, and the owners of all the eight teams.

The retentions would be announced by the respective franchises from 5-7pm, with the proceedings to be broadcast from 7pm on Star Sports.

As expected, India skipper Virat Kohli (RCB) and his predecessor MS Dhoni (Chennai Super Kings) are set to be retained by their franchises. However, the problem for RCB, who would ideally want to retain AB de Villiers and Yuzvendra Chahal too, is that if they retain all their top three players, the amount cut from the Rs 80 crore salary cap could be more than half of the available fund, leaving them with little money to spend.

Apart from Dhoni, CSK, who're returning to the IPL after a two-year ban post the spot-fixing scandal, are set to retain Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja, who both played for the Gujarat Lions in the past two editions of the IPL.

Defending champions Mumbai Indians will stick with skipper Rohit Sharma and the Pandya brothers (Hardik and Krunal), while trying to hold on to Jasprit Bumrah and Kieron Pollard through Right-to-Match (RTM) cards. The idea behind retaining Krunal could be that being an uncapped Indian player, he can be retained for only Rs3 crore instead of Rs7 crore for third capped player.

Sunrisers Hyderabad could retain skipper David Warner and pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, while Shikhar Dhawan could be bought back through the RTM card. There are talks that Delhi Daredevils may hold on to Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant. The Rajasthan Royals may ask in-form Australian skipper Steve Smith to lead them again.

Hemant Dua, CEO, Delhi Daredevils said: "We have started afresh many times. It's about maintaining continuity. Our strategy would be based upon the financial considerations of retaining certain players. Fans want to see continuity and performance so that they can look at associating certain players with the franchise in the long run".