The stage is set for the next edition of Indian Premier League (IPL). This season, IPL will be held in March in view of the Lok Sabha polls and also ICC Cricket World Cup which will be played in England from May 30. The BCCI has confirmed that the tournament will start on March 23 and take place entirely in India. Chennai Super Kings will face Royal Challengers Bangalore in the opening match. The decision to hold the tournament entirely in India was taken after BCCI held hectic parleys to decide whether to shift the venue of tournament outside India. In 2009 and 2014, the BCCI had organised the tournament in South Africa and UAE due to overlapping of dates with the general elections.
Also, India’s opening match at the World Cup was postponed from June 2 to 5. The decision was taken after the BCCI was directed to maintain a mandatory 15-day gap between the conclusion of IPL and international fixture. The transfers and the retention lists of players were announced in November last year and the auction was held on December 18. In the auction, pacer Jaydev Unadkat and uncapped Varun Chakravarthy were the most expensive player at £840,000 each. While Unadkat was picked by Rajasthan Royals, Chakravarthy went to Kings XI Punjab. English cricketer Sam Curran was the most expensive foreign player at £720,000. He will play for Punjab in the coming season. Prominent players who remained unsold in the auction include Cheteshwar Pujara, Brendon McCullum, Mushfiqur Rahim and Alex Hales.
Here are the full squads:
CHENNAI SUPER KINGS (CSK)
MS Dhoni (C), Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, Deepak Chahar, Suresh Raina, Karn Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Mitchell Santner, David Willey, Dhruv Shorey, Faf du Plessis, M Vijay, Sam Billings, KM Asif, Dwayne Bravo, Shane Watson, Lungi Ngidi, Imran Tahir, Harbhajan Singh, N Jagadeesan, Shardul Thakur, Monu Kumar, Chaitanya Bishnoi, Ruturaj Gaikwad.
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE (RBC)
Virat Kohli (C), AB de Villiers, Parthiv Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Tim Southee, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kulwant Khejroliya, Washington Sundar, Pawan Negi, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Moeen Ali, Mohammed Siraj, Colin de Grandhomme, Shimron Hetmyer, Devdutt Padikkal, Shivam Dube, Heinrich Klassen, Gurkeerat Singh, Himmat Singh, Prayas Ray Barman.
KINGS XI PUNJAB (KXIP)
KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Andrew Tye, Mayank Agarwal, Ankit Rajpoot, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Karun Nair, David Miller, Ravichandran Ashwin, Moises Henriques, Nicholas Pooran, Varun Chakaravarthy, Sam Curran, Mohammad Shami, Sarfaraz Khan, Hardus Viljoen, Arshdeep Singh, Darshan Nalkande, Prabhsimran Singh, Agnivesh Ayachi, Harpreet Brar, Murugan Ashwin.
SUNRISERS HYDERABAD (SRH)
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, David Warner, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson, Deepak Hooda, Mohammad Nabi, Manish Pandey, Basil Thampi, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami (wk), Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, Billy Stanlake, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Shakib Al Hasan, Jonny Bairstow, Wriddhiman Saha.
KOLKATA KNIGHT RIDERS (KKR)
Dinesh Karthik (C), Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Robin Uthappa, Chris Lynn, Andre Russell, Lockie Ferguson, Piyush Chawla, Shrikant Mundhe, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Carlos Brathwaite, Anrich Nortje, Nikhil Naik, Harry Gurney, Shivam Mavi, Nitish Rana, Yarra Prithviraj, Joe Denly.
MUMBAI INDIANS (MI)
Rohit Sharma (C), Yuvraj Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Krunal Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Hardik Pandya, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar, Anukul Roy, Siddhesh Lad, Aditya Tare, Quinton de Kock, Evin Lewis, Ben Cutting, Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne, Jason Behrendorff, Lasith Malinga, Anmolpreet Singh, Barinder Sran, Pankaj Jaiswal, Rasikh Salam.
DELHI CAPITALS
Shreyas Iyer, Colin Munro, Chris Morris, Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel, Ishant Sharma, Prithvi Shaw, Harshal Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Manjot Kalra, Kagiso Rabada, Sandeep Lamichhane, Trent Boult, Hanuma Vihari, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Ankush Bains, Nathu Singh, Colin Ingram, Sherfane Rutherford, Keemo Paul, Jalaj Saxena, Bandaru Ayyappa.
RAJASTHAN ROYALS (RR)
Ajinkya Rahane, Steve Smith, Jaydev Unadkat, Varun Aaron, Ben Stokes, Aryaman Birla, Krishnappa Gowtham, Sanju Samson, Shubham Rajane, Shreyas Gopal, S. Midhun, Prashant Chopra, Rahul Tripathi, Stuart Binny, Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer, Ish Sodhi, Dhawal Kulkarni, Mahipal Lomror, Oshane Thomas, Shashank Singh, Liam Livinstone, Manan Vohra, Ashton Turner, Riyan Parag.
