Indian Premier League: England captain Jos Buttler not retained by Rajasthan Royals for 2025 season

Rajasthan Royals have decided not to retain England white-ball captain Jos Buttler for the 2025 Indian Premier League season.

Buttler has been at the Royals since 2018 and was the IPL’s most valuable player two years ago, although they have elected against keeping him before the Mega Auction later this year.

Each of the 10 franchises were allowed to keep a maximum of six players in total from last season, including five capped at international level, with no England player among those retained in any squad.

Punjab Kings have not retained Jonny Bairstow, Liam Livingstone, Chris Woakes and Sam Curran – purchased for a then-IPL record £1.85m in 2023, although all could still make themselves available to be picked by a franchise in the auction.

Defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders released their title-winning captain Shreyas Iyer, Australia’s Mitchell Starc – who became the IPL’s most expensive player in the 2024 season – and England’s Phil Salt.

South Africa wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaasen has been retained for 23 crore Indian rupees (£2.1m) by Sunrisers Hyderabad, who have also kept Australian duo Pat Cummins and Travis Head.

Jasprit Bumrah and Rohit Sharma (Mumbai Indians), Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bengaluru) and Ravindra Jadeja (Chennai Super Kings) are among the Indian players to be retained, while KL Rahul (Lucknow Super Giants) and Ravichandran Ashwin (Rajasthan Royals) have been released.

The date for the Mega Auction has yet to be confirmed, while players who pull out of the Indian Premier League at short notice are set to be banned from taking part in the following two seasons as part of a new rule introduced for 2025.

Sky Sports will continue to be the home of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Women’s Premier League (WPL) next spring, bringing the greatest players in the world from the men’s and women’s game to sports fans in the UK & Ireland until at least 2027.

Who has been retained?

Correct as of October 31; Players named in surname order

Chennai Super Kings: MS Dhoni, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Matheesha Pathirana.

Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel, Abishek Porel, Tristan Stubbs, Kuldeep Yadav.

Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill, Rashid Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia.

Kolkata Knight Riders: Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Harshit Rana, Andre Russell, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh.

Lucknow Super Giants: Ayush Badoni, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Nicholas Pooran, Mayank Yadav.

Mumbai Indians: Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav.

Punjab Kings: Prabhsimran Singh, Shashank Singh.

Rajasthan Royals: Shimron Hetmyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel, Riyan Parag, Sanju Samson, Sandeep Sharma.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Yash Dayal, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins, Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhishek Sharma.

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