On July 31, an IPL meeting was held in the presence of Jay Shah. The biggest agenda of the meeting was the retention of players before the mega auction of IPL 2025. According to the IPL rule book, till now there was a rule for every team to retain 4 players, in which there could not be more than 2 foreign players and 3 Indian players. But, before the mega auction for the 17th season, every franchise has a different opinion regarding retention. This difference of opinion between them came out in the open in the meeting called on IPL and there was a ruckus. Be it Shahrukh Khan, Kavya Maran or Ness Wadia who came to attend the meeting in place of Preity Zinta. Everyone stuck to their argument.

Why the differences between the franchises?

Now the question is why such a situation has arisen? Why do the franchise owners not have the same opinion about retention? While KKR owner Shahrukh Khan is insisting on retaining as many old players as possible in the team, Punjab Kings co-owner Ness Wadia is exactly opposite to him on buying as many new players as possible. On the other hand, Kavya Maran was seen insisting on retaining foreign players in the team. The question is what is the logic behind such statements?

Why does Shahrukh Khan want more retention?

Shahrukh Khan is not releasing many of his players and is insisting on keeping them in the team for the next season because those players have made him a champion. There is a rapport between those players, which he is not in the mood to break by separating them. He wants the core of the team to remain intact. This is the reason why he is in the mood to retain as many players as possible.

Punjab Kings demand minimum retention, but why?

However, Ness Wadia, the co-owner of Preity Zinta's team Punjab Kings, has a completely different opinion on this. Ness Wadia's emphasis was on releasing as many players as possible, not on their retention. The reason behind this was his team's failure in IPL.

What is Kavya Maran's argument?

Sunrisers Hyderabad owner Kavya Maran was also seen jumping into the fight between the owners of KKR and Punjab Kings. She put forward her argument. According to Kavya Maran, there should be no restrictions on player retention. BCCI should give the franchise owners the right to take this decision. She said that the strength of some teams is capped players while some are uncapped. Some are winning on the basis of their local players while some are strong in their foreign players. Kavya Maran admitted that the strength of SRH has been foreign players.

It is clear that any meeting in which there is so much difference of opinion will definitely create chaos. And the same was seen in the meeting regarding IPL. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what action BCCI takes on this.