In one of the most shocking retention decisions in the history of the IPL, Sunrisers Hyderabad has decided to let go the T20 player of the decade Rashid Khan and has rather decided to retain two of the rookie, uncapped Indian players Abdul Samad and Umran Malik.
While Samad has been playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad for a couple of seasons now, Umran was a net bower for them last season and it was only towards the end of the season that they decided to try him. The youngster from Kashmir bowled with rapid pace and impressed one and all, but not too many people expected him to be retained.
Rashid Khan was believed to be a straightforward choice of retention for SRH, and he was one of the players the franchise talked to as well, but he was the second choice of the franchise and not the first choice, and that’s something that Rashid didn’t want.
The former Afghanistan captain wanted to be the first retention as that would have meant he would have got a 16-crore INR contract by the franchise as opposed to the second retention which would have fetched him 12 crore INR. Rashid was on a 9-crore INR contract with SRH for the last 4 seasons of the IPL.
SRH wanted to sign Kane Williamson and not Rashid Khan as their first retention
Sunrisers Hyderabad wanted Kane Williamson to be the first retention rather than Rashid Khan as they wanted to build their team around Williamson with him taking over the full-time captain. Since Rashid didn’t agree to be the second retention, the franchise didn’t have any other option, but to let him go.
The reason why SRH decided to retain Abdul Samad and Umran Malik is since both of them are uncapped Indian players at the moment, they could have been signed for 4 crore INR each, as compared to capped Indian players who had to be paid 10 and 9 crore INR respectively in case of being retained as the second and the third retention.
However, the saved budget can only be used by SRH in the next auction and not in the mega auction. For the mega auction, 33 crore INR will be deducted from their purse anyway, as in the case of any other franchise having retained three players.
