Veteran Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Monday hinted that neither him nor Shreyas Iyer will be retained by Delhi Capitals ahead of the mega auction for the 2022 edition of the Indian Premier League.
According to the retention rules, each franchise will be allowed to retain up to four players from their IPL 2021 squads. This can include up to three Indian players or a maximum of two overseas players, meanwhile, the two new franchises - Ahmedabad and Lucknow - will be allowed to make their picks of three players from the pool of un-retained players ahead of the auction.
Analysing IPL's mega auction retention prospective, Ashwin, on his YouTube channel admitted that he will not be retained by Capitals and so is Iyer, who had captained the team in 2020 edition.
"Shreyas isn't there I think. I am not there. So, someone else would have to come. I would have known if I were taken," he said.
Ashwin had joined Delhi ahead of the 2019 season after he was traded for left-armer Jagadeesha Suchith from Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings). In the 28 innings he played for the franchise, Ashwin picked 20 wickets at an economy rate of 7.55.
Iyer, on the other hand, joined Capitals (then Delhi Daredevils) back in 2015 after he was picked from the player auction for INR 2.6 crores. He was retained by the franchise in the 2018 IPL auction and was announced the captain a few days later. He led the team to playoffs in 2019, the franchise's first appearance in the knockouts in seven years before leading them to the final in 2020 where they lost to Mumbai Indians in the final.
In 86 innings he batted for the franchise, Iyer scored 1916 runs at 31.7 with 16 half-centuries.
Delhi is most likely to retain their captain Rishabh Pant, who led the team to playoffs in 2021 season, opener Prithvi Shaw and keep South African pacer Anrich Nortje as their overseas option. The fourth Indian is likely to be either Avesh Khan, who was their top wicket-taker in the season, or an all-rounder in Axar Patel.