6 spots to fill with Indians, SRH should forget about Rishabh and Shreyas

IPL Auction: SRH did the mistake of retaining three foreigners for a massive amount, and could pay the price next year.

The IPL Auction 2025 is going to be a massive affair on Nov 24, 25, in Jeddah, simply because it will set the tone for each franchise, for the next three seasons. While MI and KKR look the best-placed teams at the moment, before the auction, there are a few teams, who have a few issues to take care of, before IPL 2025 starts.

Questionable IPL Retentions

One of them is IPL 2024 finalists — SRH, who retained Heinrich Klaasen, Pat Cummins, Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Nitish Reddy, for a massive INR 75 Cr. Now, they have only 45 Cr left in their purse to fill up their squad/team with 6 Indian players, who can do the job for them.

But then the problem that lies with them, after retaining three foreigners is, they might end up not getting the best of Indian players for the playing XI. Just imagine, the likes of Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul, Washington Sundar, or even Ishan Kishan or Shreyas Iyer — they would all go in excess of 15 Cr, and SRH just can’t afford that.

SRH Need IPL Auction Miracle

A bigger problem will be with the bowlers, as they haven’t retained any Indian bowler, and just one bowler overall in Pat Cummins. So, someone like a Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Akash Deep, Harshal Patel, and Mohit Sharma looks out of bounds for them, at least for now. Even a Bhuvneshwar Kumar would cost them a bomb, since SRH can only RTM an uncapped player. In fact, the other teams will be aware of this scenario, and could spoil SRH’s party at the IPL Auction 2025.

Having said that, the team should go about the auction smartly, and target the lesser names, who turned out to be decent players in IPL 2024. Bowler Tushar Deshpander wasn’t retained by CSK and should be on their list — he had 17 wickets in 13 matches this year. Other consideration in batting should be Prithvi Shaw, who has had his struggles, but must be itching to prove a point. India bowler Umesh Yadav won’t be much on teams’ radar and should definitely be on SRHs’ mind.