After the player retention window ended on January 20th, the eight IPL franchises retained 139 players. The auction is expected to take place in Chennai on 18th or 19th February. Before that, there is a trading window as well. It will stay open till February 4th and players are expected to be moved from one team to another.

IPL 2021: Traded, Released, and Retained Players

How does the IPL trade window work?

Teams can trade players for players or can make cash deals depending on the parties. However, trades can’t be carried out without the players consenting to it.

IPL 2021 Trade Updates:

• Interestingly, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) became the first team to include players via the IPL trade window when they acquired a couple of Delhi Capitals (DC) all-rounders in Daniel Sams and Harshal Patel in an all-cash deal on Wednesday.
• Later on Thursday, Rajasthan Royals (RR) confirmed the trade of batsman Robin Uthappa to Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for IPL 2021 in an all-cash deal. Uthappa, an Orange Cap winner in 2014, who has in the past represented Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Pune Warrior India (now defunct), Kolkata Knight Riders and the Royals, will now head to his sixth IPL franchise.
• IPL 2020’s 8th placed team Rajasthan Royals has appointed Kumar Sangakkara as Director of Cricket  IPL 2021: Rajasthan Royals appoint Kumar Sangakkara as director of cricket
• No Trade has happened over the last 72 hours.
• Gautam Gambhir has suggested that KKR should trade Kuldeep Yadav. Yadav was retained by KKR for 5.8 cr salary.

It is worth mentioning that in recent times, some trades have changed the fortunes of sides. Hence, this time everyone will keep a close eye on the list of players being traded as some of them might turn out to be season-defining in IPL 2021.

Here’s the list of retained and released players before the IPL 2021 Auction:

Chennai Super Kings

Retained Players: MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, KM Asif, Deepak Chahar, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, N Jagadeesan, Karn Sharma, Lungi Ngidi, Mitchell Santner, Ravindra Jadeja, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shardul Thakur, Sam Curran, Josh Hazlewood, R Sai Kishore

Released Players: Kedar Jadhav, Murali Vijay, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Monu Singh, Shane Watson

Delhi Capitals

Retained Players: Shreyas Iyer, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Ishant Sharma, Kagiso Rabada, Prithvi Shaw, R Ashwin, Rishabh Pant, Shikhar Dhawan, Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Lalit Yadav, Anrich Nortje, Daniel Sams, Pravin Dubey, Chris Woakes

Released Players: Alex Carey, Keemo Paul, Tushar Deshpande, Sandeep Lamichhane, Mohit Sharma, Jason Roy

Kings XI Punjab

Retained Players: KL Rahul, Arshdeep Singh, Chris Gayle, Darshan Nalkande, Harpreet Brar, Mandeep Singh, Mayank Agarwal, Mohd. Shami, M Ashwin, Nicholas Pooran, Sarfaraz Khan, Deepak Hooda, Ishan Porel, Ravi Bishnoi, Chris Jordan, Prabhsimran Singh

Released Players: Glenn Maxwell, Sheldon Cottrell, Mujeeb Zadran, Hardus Viljoen, James Neesham, Krishnappa Gowtham, Karun Nair, Jagadeesha Suchith, Tejinder Singh Dhillon

Kolkata Knight Riders

Retained Players: Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell, Dinesh Karthik, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Kuldeep Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Nitish Rana, Prasidh Krishna, Rinku Singh, Sandeep Warrier, Shivam Mavi, Shubman Gill, Sunil Narine, Pat Cummins, Rahul Tripathi, Varun Chakravarthy, Tim Seifert

Released Players: Chris Green, Harry Gurney, M Siddharth, Nikhil Naik, Siddhesh Lad, Tom Banton

Mumbai Indians

Retained Players: Rohit Sharma, Aditya Tare, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Dhawal Kulkarni, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Jasprit Bumrah, Jayant Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Quinton de Kock, Rahul Chahar, Suryakumar Yadav, Trent Boult, Chris Lynn, Saurabh Tiwary, Mohsin Khan

Released Players: Prince Balwant Rai, Digvijay Deshmukh, Lasith Malinga, Nathan Coulter-Nile, James Pattinson, Sherfane Rutherford, Mitchell McCleneghan

Rajasthan Royals

Retained Players: Sanju Samson, Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer, Jos Buttler, Mahipal Lomror, Manan Vohra, Mayank Markande, Rahul Tewatia, Riyan Parag, Shreyas Gopal, Robin Uthappa, Jaydev Unadkat, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Anuj Rawat, Kartik Tyagi, David Miller, Andrew Tye

Released Players: Steve Smith, Akash Singh, Anirudha Joshi, Ankit Rajpoot, Oshane Thomas, Shashank Singh, Tom Curran, Varun Aaron

Royal Challengers Bangalore

Retained Players: Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal, Md. Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Joshua Phillipe, Pavan Deshpande, Shahbaz Ahmed, Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson

Released Players: Chris Morris, Shivam Dube, Aaron Finch, Umesh Yadav, Dale Steyn, Moeen Ali, Parthiv Patel, Pawan Negi, Isuru Udana, Gurkeerat Mann

Sunrisers Hyderabad

Retained Players: David Warner, Abhishek Sharma, Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jonny Bairstow, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shreevats Goswami, Siddarth Kaul, Khaleel Ahmed, T Natarajan, Vijay Shankar, Wriddhiman Saha, Virat Singh, Priyam Garg, Mitchell Marsh, Jason Holder, Abdul Samad

Released Players: Billy Stanlake, Sandeep Bavanaka, Fabian Allen, Sanjay Yadav, Prithviraj Yarra

How much money will be spent during the IPL 2021 Auction?

The 8 IPL franchises will end up spending 196.6 Crores during the auction. Once the window for retaining players ended on Wednesday, 20th January, the eight franchises retained a total of 139 players and spent 483.39 crores on it. 57 players were released and 196.6 crores will be spent on them during the auction.