IPL 2018: Five Players who were retained but didn't get much chances

The 11th ongoing season of the Indian Premier League has completed its half-way stage. We have seen some great action while there has been some mundane performance from some players.

Meanwhile, some of the players were retained by their respective teams before the Indian Premier League auctions. Players were retained through the Right to Match cards during the auctions.

It was expected that these players would be a given longer run in the season as their teams didn’t want to let them go. But there are some players who were not able to live up to the expectations or they didn’t get their chance because of the team’s composition.

Let’s take a look at the five players who were retained but they didn’t get many chances in this season:

5. Sarfaraz Khan

The youngster Sarfaraz Khan mundane performance with the bat forced RCB to drop him. The right-hander scored just 11 runs in the three matches he has thus far played.

Moreover, Sarfaraz was also not up to the mark with his fielding for the Virat Kohli-led team. The young lad would have to work on his fitness to get the desired results.

4. Kieron Pollard

Kieron Pollard was dropped from the last match against Chennai Super Kings. The combative Windies batsman was able to accumulate only 63 runs in the 6 matches which led to his exit from the final XI.

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Moreover, Pollard was hardly utilized as a bowler by Rohit Sharma. The all-rounder was retained by the defending champions through Right to Match card in the IPL auctions.

3. Axar Patel 

Axar has been unfortunate to miss out on the action.

Axar Patel has been really unfortunate to miss out on the Kings XI Punjab playing XI. Though, like other players, the all-rounder’s form is not the reason for his ouster from the last XI. In fact, the main reason is Punjab’s team composition which already has spinners like Ravichandran Ashwin and Mujeeb Ur Rahman.

Surprisingly, Axar was the only player that was retained by Punjab before the auctions. The all-rounder has so far only played two matches for the Punjab side in which he scored only two runs and scalped two wickets.

2. David Miller

David Miller was retained by Punjab through the Right to Match card in the Indian Premier League auctions. However, the Proteas batsman has played only two matches thus far for the Punjab franchise.

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The reason for his exclusion is limit of foreign players in the playing XI as only four players can make the cut. The southpaw batsman scored 50 runs in the two matches he has so far played.

1. Marcus Stoinis

Marcus Stoinis was also retained via the Right to Match card. The Australian all-rounder also finds himself in the same boat as David Miller.

The right-hander has scored 33 runs in the couple of matches he has so far played for the Punjab franchise. The Aussie all-rounder has been wicketless thus far in the season.

Disclaimer: The article is updated as per the latest records till 1 May 2018.

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