Delhi: The deadline passed and we saw blockbuster trades, shocking releases and major team changes. A total of 173 players were retained, out of which 49 were foreigners and now a total of 77 player slots are left in the auction. However, some strange facts also came to light in what happened. Note the same:

-Two years ago, they could not have imagined that they would release Mathisha Pathirana, who played a special role in taking Chennai Super Kings to the top. Perhaps the strategy is to buy them back at a lower price. Whether this intention will be fulfilled or whether Pathirana will play for a new team will be known in the auction.

-KKR has accepted the mistake they made with Venkatesh Iyer in the last auction and that is why he was released. His price of Rs 23.75 crore was too high to be justified. He was seen as a candidate for captaincy but that also did not happen. This time whoever buys them in the auction will not pay the same fees as before. How can one who is not in Team India’s scheme expect a big price?

-Many pundits will include both Maxwell and Russell in their all-time T20 XI given their tremendous IPL records. Even then Andre Russell was released by KKR and Maxwell was released by Punjab Kings. Both the teams agreed that what to do with the prestige, now the cost is not being recovered.

-Yash Dayal, against whom POSCO case is currently pending and not one but many girls have accused him of misbehavior, has been retained by RCB. The interesting thing is that the Uttar Pradesh team for which he played in domestic cricket is not selecting him to avoid infamy. Has not played any match since the last IPL final.

-Ravindra Jadeja’s record for Chennai Super Kings is 2354 runs and 152 wickets and Andre Russell’s record for KKR is 2658 runs and 124 wickets. Both of them are the only players who have scored 2000+ runs and taken 100+ wickets for the same IPL franchise. Both were released by their respective teams.

-Which team made the most expensive retention mistake? Mumbai Indians are getting the maximum votes on this question. Had they released Deepak Chahar, they could have increased their purse by Rs 9.25 crore. Now he doesn’t even have Rs 3 crore. On top of that, Deepak is being paid more money than Tilak Verma.

-Ravindra Jadeja was in the team of the first match of Rajasthan Royals in 2008. Now back to his first IPL franchise. Jadeja is one of the few players to win IPL titles for both Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings.

-The player retention window for the 2026 season closed on November 15, 2025.

• 173 players retained
• Of these 49 foreigners
• 77 player slots left for auction
• The money left for them is Rs 237.55 crore.

-Another big special fact has come to the name of Ravindra Jadeja.

• He used to get Rs 18 crore in Chennai Super Kings
• Rajasthan Royals will get Rs 14 crore and this cut was done with their consent.
• Even then the expenditure of Chennai Super Kings remained only Rs 18 crores.
• So where did the remaining Rs 4 crore go? Rajasthan Royals got this cash and with this money they bought two more players (Sam Curran and Donovan Ferreira). Even then Rs 60 lakh were left with him.
• In all this no one broke any IPL guideline.

-Who are you counting as the biggest release mistake? Delhi Capitals to release South African batsman Donovan Ferreira. Why so? The reason for this is that in T20 in 2025, he is batting at a strike rate of 191+ and only Finn Allen, Abhishek Sharma and Michael Owen have a better strike rate than this.