By 7:48 pm on 15 November 2025, the BCCI’s league office in Mumbai had received retention submissions from all ten franchises. The deadline was 5 pm. The trade window had closed ninety minutes before that. In the gap between the two cut-offs, the league’s most consequential personnel day since the 2022 mega-auction played out: eleven marquee names changed jerseys, eight captains confirmed their cores, and the purse arithmetic for the mini-auction was rewritten for the rest of the field. This ledger tracks what every franchise retained, released, traded in, traded out, and carried into the auction that followed.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: sixteen kept, eight slots open
Royal Challengers Bengaluru filed the deepest retention list of the day — sixteen players — anchored by the core that delivered the 2025 title at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The retained group included Virat Kohli, Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar, Krunal Pandya, Romario Shepherd, Josh Hazlewood, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Yash Dayal. The released list was six names: Liam Livingstone, Lungi Ngidi, Mayank Agarwal, Swastik Chikara, Manoj Bhandage and Mohit Rathee. RCB entered the mini-auction with Rs 16.4 crore and eight slots to fill, including a small overseas gap that the franchise had not disclosed in its pre-deadline trade talks.
For RCB, the read was continuity over churn. The Kohli–Salt top order, the Hazlewood–Bhuvneshwar seam pairing, and the Rajat Patidar middle overs were the spine that the franchise chose to protect rather than reset. The auction was, in effect, a depth exercise — a finisher, a wrist-spin option, and one or two bench Indian seamers to back up the workload in a long home-and-away season.
Rajasthan Royals: two captains out, three trade-in additions
Rajasthan Royals had the busiest trade window of the day. The franchise released Sanju Samson (traded to Chennai) and Nitish Rana (traded to Delhi), along with Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Akash Madhwal and Kumar Kartikeya. Through the same window, the Royals brought in Ravindra Jadeja, Sam Curran and Donovan Ferreira. The retained group — Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer and Jofra Archer — gave the franchise a clear top-five identity for the 2026 season. RR went into the mini-auction with Rs 16.05 crore, nine slots, and one overseas slot.
The Samson trade was the most consequential personnel move of the 15 November day, not because of the financial value alone but because Samson had been the franchise’s captain-and-wicketkeeper for four seasons. The Royals were, in effect, resetting the leadership group while paying for it in trade compensation and in a thinner auction purse than their purse-per-slot ratio would normally allow.
Chennai Super Kings: eleven released, Samson in, Rs 43.4 crore for the auction
Chennai Super Kings filed the second-cleanest retention list, releasing eleven players. The headline names were Rachin Ravindra, Devon Conway and Matheesha Pathirana, while the already-traded Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran also exited. CSK acquired Sanju Samson as their marquee pre-auction signing of the cycle and entered the mini-auction with Rs 43.4 crore in purse — the second-largest in the league and the largest among franchises that made a marquee trade rather than a full reset.
The CSK move was a structural one. The post-2025 squad had thinned out around the Ruturaj Gaikwad captaincy, and the franchise chose to inject a senior Indian top-order player (Samson) rather than chase the same profile in the auction. The remaining purse, paired with the eight-figure overseas slots CSK held open, gave Stephen Fleming’s coaching staff the option to target a fast-bowling all-rounder and a death-overs specialist on auction day.
Kolkata Knight Riders: seven released, the largest purse in the league
Kolkata Knight Riders filed the most aggressive reset of the day. The released list was Spencer Johnson, Andre Russell, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Quinton de Kock, Moeen Ali and Anrich Nortje — a list that removed the franchise’s most experienced overseas match-winners in a single window. The headline consequence was purse: KKR carried the highest purse of any team at Rs 64.3 crore into the IPL 2026 mini-auction, a war chest that was roughly two-thirds of the franchise’s pre-deadline 2026 sanction.
The KKR arithmetic was unusual. By releasing rather than trading Russell, de Kock, Gurbaz and Nortje, the franchise avoided the trade-value haircut that would have applied to long-serving overseas players whose auction base price had eroded. The auction purse advantage came at the cost of a squad that, on 15 November, looked threadbare around the retained Indian core. The mini-auction strategy was, in effect, the franchise’s replacement plan.
Punjab Kings: a deep batting core kept, four slots remaining
Punjab Kings retained a deep batting group — Shreyas Iyer, Nehal Wadhera, Musheer Khan, Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh — and released Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis, Aaron Hardie, Kyle Jamieson, Kuldeep Sen and Praveen Dubey. The franchise entered the auction with Rs 11.5 crore remaining and four slots, including two overseas.
The PBKS retention pattern was the inverse of KKR’s. Where KKR reset, PBKS consolidated. The five retained Indian batters gave the franchise a recognised top-six for almost every game in the 2026 schedule, with the trade window used to clear overseas slots rather than to reshape the batting core. The auction purse was modest, but the squad already had batting weight before the season opened.
Delhi Capitals: Nitish Rana in, Faf du Plessis and Fraser-McGurk out
Delhi Capitals acquired Nitish Rana from Rajasthan Royals in the trade window and retained KL Rahul, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mitchell Starc and T Natarajan. The released list included Faf du Plessis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Mohit Sharma and others. DC entered the mini-auction with Rs 21.8 crore and eight slots, including five overseas.
The DC profile heading into the auction was a familiar one: heavy on Indian all-rounders, light on Indian top-order batting, and pencilled in for two or three overseas power-hitters at the auction. The Rana trade was the franchise’s odd-one-out move on the day — a senior Indian middle-order batter added for role balance rather than for the budget.
Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill anchored, Rs 12.9 crore for the auction
Gujarat Titans retained captain Shubman Gill, Rashid Khan, Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Rahul Tewatia and Washington Sundar, with Rs 12.9 crore remaining. The released list was Karim Janat, Kulwant Khejroliya, Gerald Coetzee, Dasun Shanaka and Mahipal Lomror. GT’s was the most retention-heavy list on the day outside RCB’s, and the smallest purse of the franchises that made a clear retention choice.
The Gill-Rashid-Sudharsan-Buttler quartet was the headline identity the franchise filed with. The 12.9 crore purse was, in effect, a depth-and-backup exercise: one or two bench players, a backup keeper, and a slot for the young Indian seam-bowling all-rounder the franchise had been tracking in domestic cricket.
Mumbai Indians: three trade-in additions, only Rs 2.75 crore left
Mumbai Indians retained Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Trent Boult, Will Jacks and Tilak Varma, then traded in Shardul Thakur (from Lucknow Super Giants), Sherfane Rutherford (from Gujarat Titans) and Mayank Markande (from Kolkata Knight Riders). The franchise entered the mini-auction with only Rs 2.75 crore remaining — the smallest purse in the league.
MI’s 15 November was a trade-window story, not a retention story. The franchise used the trade window to fill four-five squad slots (Shardul’s seam-bowling all-rounder profile, Rutherford’s middle-overs power-hitting, Markande’s leg-spin option) rather than carry purse into the auction. The 2.75 crore that remained was, in practice, unused auction budget — the rest of the squad was in place before the auction opened.
Lucknow Super Giants: Mohammed Shami in, David Miller out
Lucknow Super Giants traded Mohammed Shami in from Sunrisers Hyderabad and Arjun Tendulkar in from Mumbai Indians. The retained list was Rishabh Pant, Nicholas Pooran, Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh and Mayank Yadav. The released list was David Miller, Shamar Joseph and Akash Deep. LSG held Rs 22.95 crore with six slots remaining.
The Shami trade was the headline LSG move of the day — a senior Indian fast bowler, returning from injury, added to a squad that already had a settled batting spine. The franchise went into the mini-auction with the cleanest balance of any team: a full retained core, a marquee trade-in, and enough purse to target another overseas seam-bowling all-rounder without unsettling the top of the order.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Shami traded out, Rs 25.5 crore to spend
Sunrisers Hyderabad retained Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen, Pat Cummins and Abhishek Sharma with a Rs 25.5 crore purse, and released Mohammed Shami (traded to LSG), Abhinav Manohar, Rahul Chahar, Adam Zampa and others. SRH’s was the most purse-positive retention of the day after KKR’s, with a top-five retained core that had been the league’s most aggressive batting unit through the previous season.
The SRH identity after the 15 November deadline was a top-order problem and a bowling hole. With Shami gone, the franchise needed a senior Indian fast bowler at the auction; with Klaasen and Head kept, the batting order was already full. The 25.5 crore purse was the second-largest in the league, and the auction strategy was, in effect, a single-purpose exercise: find the bowler.
How the 15 November ledger reshaped the fantasy read on Exchange22
For fantasy players on Exchange22 tracking the IPL 2026 team list, the 15 November day was the single biggest re-pricing event of the pre-season. Eight of the ten franchises made clear personnel cuts, three traded marquee players, and the purse table redistributed auction power from MI (Rs 2.75 crore) to KKR (Rs 64.3 crore) within a single afternoon. The fantasy read from the IPL teams database on Exchange22 was straightforward: every franchise had a different auction starting point, and the player pricing for the next match-window would reflect that asymmetry.
The practical implication for fantasy team builders was the same as the practical implication for the franchises themselves. The CSK, RR, DC, LSG and SRH squads looked like trade-window shapes — built around a marquee signing or trade-in. The KKR, RCB and GT squads looked like retention shapes — built around a kept core. The MI and PBKS squads looked like the smallest possible reset shapes — built around a single retained core and the smallest auction purse of the league. Each shape read differently on the Exchange22 player-price sheet, and each demanded a different captaincy bias in the first week of the new season.
What the 15 November ledger did not say
What the 15 November release did not address was the larger question of franchise valuation, salary-cap inflation, and the long-term sustainability of the trade-window model. The trade values agreed between franchises were not disclosed in the league circular. The BCCI did not, on the day, name the financial consideration in any of the three marquee trades. The franchise statements focused on the headline name moving, not on the assets attached to the trade.
The second omission was the question of franchise comparability. KKR's Rs 64.3 crore war chest and MI's Rs 2.75 crore at the same auction was not a coincidence — it was the direct consequence of the choices each franchise made on 15 November. The BCCI's circular did not comment on whether that asymmetry was the intended outcome of the trade-window rules, or whether it was a side-effect that the next cycle of rules would have to address.
What to remember from the 15 November ledger
The 15 November 2025 retention and trade ledger was, in the end, three kinds of decisions wrapped in one calendar day. Eight franchises reset parts of their squad; three franchises traded marquee players; two franchises (MI and PBKS) went into the auction with the smallest purses in the league. The combined effect was a single-day re-pricing of the IPL 2026 player market, and a clear forecast for which franchises would dominate the auction and which would stay quiet.
For fantasy players on Exchange22, the lesson is the same one the 15 November ledger itself teaches: when the franchise math changes, the fantasy read changes, and a player priced on the morning of 15 November is not the same player priced on the morning of 16 November. The trade-window is, in this sense, the most volatile pricing event of the pre-season — and the 15 November 2025 ledger was the most volatile trade window of the cycle.
Frequently asked questions
What happened on 15 November 2025 in the IPL 2026 retention cycle?
On 15 November 2025 all ten IPL franchises finalised their retention lists for the 2026 season immediately after the closed trade window, releasing multiple established players and reshaping squads through marquee trades such as Ravindra Jadeja and Sanju Samson to Chennai Super Kings, Mohammed Shami to Lucknow Super Giants, and Shardul Thakur back to Mumbai Indians.
Which franchise carried the largest purse into the IPL 2026 mini-auction?
Kolkata Knight Riders carried the highest purse of any franchise into the mini-auction at Rs 64.3 crore, after releasing Andre Russell, Quinton de Kock, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Venkatesh Iyer, Spencer Johnson, Moeen Ali and Anrich Nortje.
How many players did Chennai Super Kings release for IPL 2026?
Chennai Super Kings released 11 players including Rachin Ravindra, Devon Conway and Matheesha Pathirana, while the already-traded Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran also exited the squad. CSK entered the mini-auction with Rs 43.4 crore in purse after acquiring Sanju Samson.
Which players did Sanju Samson and Ravindra Jadeja change IPL 2026 teams for?
Sanju Samson moved from Rajasthan Royals to Chennai Super Kings as a marquee trade, while Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran moved from CSK to Rajasthan Royals. Nitish Rana moved from Rajasthan Royals to Delhi Capitals, Shardul Thakur from Lucknow Super Giants to Mumbai Indians, and Mohammed Shami from Sunrisers Hyderabad to Lucknow Super Giants.
How many overseas slots did each IPL 2026 franchise have after the retention deadline?
Overseas slots remaining: Rajasthan Royals 1, Punjab Kings 2, Delhi Capitals 5, and the rest were filled or partly retained based on each franchise’s trade activity. Across the league, the trade window and retention exercise reset the overseas-quota math for the mini-auction.
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