IPL 2025: SRH's 4 retentions out in the public

Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra has named four possible players who can be retained by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auctions. The four players are Travis Head, Pat Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, and Abhishek Sharma.

However, in a huge surprise, Chopra did not add experienced seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar to this list. Bhuvneshwar has been associated with Sunrisers Hyderabad for a long time and has achieved most of his IPL success with them.

Bhuvneshwar has been Sunrisers Hyderabad's key wicket-taking option over the years. He is extremely potent with the new ball and useful at the death as well. The 34-year-old is the fourth-highest wicket-taker in IPL at the moment.

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Aakash Chopra names four possible retentions for SRH ahead of IPL 2025 mega auctions

While speaking in a video uploaded on his YouTube channel, Aakash Chopra shared his views on SRH's possible retentions ahead of IPL 2025.

He picked Travis Head, Pat Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, and Abhishek Sharma as the players who can be retained.

"They will retain Travis Head, Pat Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, and Abhishek Sharma. I think these four should be retained because you cannot let them go anywhere. They have a destructive team. Both left-handed openers come and hit sixes and then Heinrich Klaasen comes and destroys," Chopra said.

All these four players had a fantastic IPL 2024 season. Head and Abhishek were a revolution with the bat as an opening pair while Heinrich Klaasen was at his destructive bat in the middle order. Skipper Pat Cummins was also excellent with his leadership skills and led SRH to the final.

Aakash Chopra excludes Bhuvneshwar Kumar

However, the former India opener did not include Aiden Markram in this list. Another surprise name missing from this list was Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has been associated with the franchise for more than a decade now.

"Aiden Markram - how many overseas will you be able to keep? Don't know what rule is going to come about the number of overseas that can be retained. They will definitely try to retain these three or four names. I don't think you will retain Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) because it's a three-year game. I feel the auction and retention are going to be very interesting this time," Chopra added.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar's contributions to Sunrisers Hyderabad

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been a key component of SRH's success over the years. In 2016, he won the Purple Cap by picking up 23 wickets in the season and helped Sunrisers win the IPL title that year.

However, the last few years have gone downhill for Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He picked up just 11 wickets in 16 matches in IPL 2024 at an average of 48.45 and an economy rate of 9.35. This makes him unlikely to be retained by SRH for the next season, although, there are high chances that he will be bought back in the auction.

Overall, he has picked up 181 wickets in 176 matches at an average of 27.23 and an economy rate of 7.56.