New Delhi: India's T20I captain Hardik Pandya on Sunday returned to his "spiritual home" Mumbai Indians after an all-cash deal trade-off with Gujarat Titans was formally completed following 72 hours of intense drama.
On Sunday at 5 pm, the IPL retention window was closed and at that point, Gujarat Titans named their IPL-winning captain in the retention list raising a lot of eyebrows.
However, it was learnt that the formal paperwork wasn't yet completed and hence the IPL and BCCI didn't give greenlight of approval for the most anticipated move of this transfer season.
"Yes, Hardik's trade off got completed after 5 pm. The deal is now formalised and he is a MI player. It's been a tripartite all cash deal. MI have traded their all-rounder Cameron Green to RCB in an all cash deal. After that they had requisite funds to settle an all-cash deal with Gujarat Titans and procure Hardik's services," a senior BCCI official and IPL Governing Council member told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
It must be mentioned that Green was bought by MI for a whopping Rs 17.5 crore during last auction and hence the money required to buy Hardik wasn't available till that deal was inked.
Pandya was picked by Titans before 2022 auction from the list of available players for the two new franchises -- Titans and Lucknow Super Giants.
His reported fee was Rs 15 crore and he led the side to back-to-back finals, winning the championship in maiden year and losing a thriller to CSK in 2023.
Mumbai Indians, who have one of the most systematic team building process, have roped in Pandya with a long term plan in mind as there will be mega auction in 2025 and every franchise will try to build a new team with a young core.
However, with India's ODI and Test captain Rohit Sharma still very much in the mix and perhaps franchise's biggest icon with five titles under his belt, it would be interesting what kind of decision the owners and top management with regards to leadership.
This must be mentioned that those in the know of things had an inkling that Pandya after two years at Titans wanted to move back to the franchise from where he had made a name and played seven seasons.
The lure of captaining IPL's most popular franchise with biggest fan base was also a reason apart from building his brand as a national skipper in one of the formats.
List of retained and released players
Mumbai Indians: Retained: Rohit Sharma (capt), Dewald Brevis, Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma, Tim David, Vishnu Vinod, Arjun Tendulkar, Shams Mulani, Nehal Wadhera, Jasprit Bumrah, Kumar Kartikeya, Piyush Chawla, Akash Madhwal, Jason Behrendorff, Romario Shepherd (trade).
Released: Arshad Khan, Ramandeep Singh, Hrithik Shokeen, Raghav Goyal, Jofra Archer, Tristan Stubbs, Duan Jansen, Jhye Richardson, Riley Meredith, Chris Jordan, Sandeep Warrier.
Traded in: Hardik Pandya
Traded out: Cameron Green to Royal Challengers Bangalore
Gujarat Titans: Retained: David Miller, Shubman Gill, Matthew Wade, Wriddhiman Saha, Kane Williamson, Abhinav Manohar, B Sai Sudharsan, Darshan Nalkande, Vijay Shankar, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Tewatia, Mohammed Shami, Noor Ahmad, R Sai Kishore, Rashid Khan, Josh Little, Mohit Sharma.
Released: Yash Dayal, K S Bharat, Shivam Mavi, Urvil Patel, Pradeep Sangwan, Odean Smith, Alzarri Joseph, Dasun Shanaka.
Lucknow Supergiants: Retained: K L Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Deepak Hooda, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis, Prerak Mankad, Yudhvir Singh, Mark Wood, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Ravi Bishnoi, Yash Thakur, Amit Mishra, Naveen-ul-Haq.
Released: Daniel Sams, Karun Nair, Jaydev Unadkat, Manan Vohra, Karan Sharma, Suryansh Shedge, Swapnil Singh, Arpit Guleria.
Traded out: Romario Shepherd, Avesh Khan.
Traded in: Devdutt Padikkal.
Sunrisers Hyderabad: Retained: Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Heinrich Klaasen, Mayank Agarwal, Anmolpreet Singh, Upendra Yadav, Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed (traded from Royal Challengers Bangalore), Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen, Washington Sundar, Sanvir Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Markande, Umran Malik, T Natarajan, Fazahaq Farooqi.
Released: Harry Brook, Samarth Vyas, Kartik Tyagi, Vivrant Sharma, Akeal Hosein, Adil Rashid.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Retained: Nitish Rana, Rinku Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Sunil Narine, Jason Roy. Suyash Sharma, Anukul Roy, Andre Russell,Venkatesh Iyer, Harshit Rana, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakravarthy.
Released: Shakib Al Hasan, Litton Das, David Wiese, Arya Desai, N Jagadeesan, Mandeep Singh, Kulwant Khejroliya, Shardul Thakur, Lockie Ferguson, Umesh Yadav, Tim Southee, Johnson Charles.
Chennai Super Kings: Retained: M S Dhoni, Moeen Ali, Deepak Chahar, Devon Conway (wk), Tushar Deshpande, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajay Mandal, Mukesh Choudhary, Matheesha Pathirana, Ajinkya Rahane, Shaik Rasheed, Mitchell Santner, Simarjeet Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana.
Released: Ben Stokes, Dwaine Pretorius, Ambati Rayudu, Sisanda Magala, Kyle Jamieson, Bhagath Varma, Senapati and Akash Singh.
Delhi Captails: Retained: Rishabh Pant, David Warner, Prithvi Shaw, Axar Patel, Mitchell Marsh, Anrich Nortje, Kuldeep Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Lungi Ngidi, Abishek Porel, Lalit Yadav, Yash Dhull, Pravin Dubey, Vicky Ostwal, Khaleel Ahmed.
Released: Manish Pandey, Sarfaraz Khan, Rilee Rossouw, Ripal Patel, Rovman Powell, Aman Khan, Priyam Garg, Chetan Sakariya, Mustafizur Rahman, Phil Salt, Kamlesh Nagarkoti.
Rajasthan Royals: Retained: Sanju Samson, Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prasidh Krishna, Navdeep Saini, Avesh Khan (traded from Lucknow Super Giants), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Kuldeep Sen, Sandeep Sharma , Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Kunal Singh Rathore, Jos Buttler, Trent Boult, Adam Zampa, Shimron Hetmyer, Donovan Ferreira.
Released: Devdutt Padikkal (traded to Lucknow Super Giants), Murugan Ashwin, K C Cariappa, K M Asif, Akash Vashisht, Abdul Bazith, Kuldip Yadav, Joe Root, Jason Holder, Obed McCoy.
Royal Challengers Bangalore: Retained: Faf du Plessis, Glenn Maxwell, Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Anuj Rawat, Dinesh Karthik, Suyash Prabhudessai, Will Jacks, Mahipal Lomror, Karn Sharma, Manoj Bhandage, Mayank Dagar (trade), Vyshak Vijaykumar, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj, Reece Topley, Himanshu Sharma, Rajan Kumar.
Released: Wanindu Hasarangha, Harshal Patel, Josh Hazlewood, Finn Allen, Michael Bracewell, David Willey, Wayne Parnell, Sonu Yadav, Avinash Singh, Siddharth Kaul, Kedar Jhadav.
Traded in: Cameron Green from Mumbai Indians
Punjab Kings: Retained: Shikhar Dhawan, Jonny Bairstow, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran, Sikandar Raza, Matthew Short, Arshdeep Singh, Kagiso Rabada, Nathan Ellis, Prabhsimran Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Harpreet Bhatia, Atharva Taide, Rishi Dhawan, Shivam Singh, Harpreet Brar, Rahul Chahar, Gurnoor Brar, Vidwath Kaverappa.
Released: Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Mohit Rathee, Baltej Dhanda, Raj Angad Bawa, Shahrukh Khan.
