The three-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have retained Harshit Rana, and Ramandeep Singh as uncapped players ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction.

Meanwhile, Rinku Singh, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell and Varun Chakravarthy have been retained ahead of the auction.

Defending champions have retained a maximum number of players as per the new retention rules, each team can retain six players from the existing squad, either via retention or by using the Right to Match (RTM) option.

To the surprise, Shreyas Iyer has been released ahead of the auction. With Harshit Rana not making his debut, it was clear that he would be considered an uncapped player.

Multiple reports suggest that KKR would part ways with Shreyas Iyer which eventually proved true. It is learned that Iyer was given an offer by two other franchises.

Check out the list of KKR Retained players ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction.

Along with the KKR retained players, we have also shared the list of released players for the auction.

• Shreyas Iyer – Batter
• Nitish Rana – All-rounder
• Venkatesh Iyer – All-rounder
• Jason Roy – Batter
• Vaibhav Arora – Bowler
• Rahmanullah Gurbaz – Keeper-batter
• Suyash Sharma – Bowler
• Anukul Roy – All-rounder
• KS Bharat – Keeper-batter
• Chetan Sakariya – Bowler
• Mitchell Starc – Bowler
• Angkrish Raghuvanshi – Batter
• Sherfane Rutherford – Batter
• Manish Pandey – Batter
• Mujeeb-Ur-Rahman – Bowler
• Gus Atkinson – Bowler
• Sakib Hussain – Bowler

With a total of INR 72 Crore having been used for the retention, Kolkata will be moving into the mega auction with a remaining purse value of INR 48 Crore.

With a fresh three-year cycle starting with the IPL 2025 season next year, the upcoming retentions will be crucial for all the teams to adopt new strategies for success.

The IPL 2025 Mega Auction will take place in November or December with BCCI exploring the options of holding the event overseas, Riyadh in the United Arab Emirates has emerged as the frontrunner while Muscat, Doha and Riyadh are also being considered.