South African star wicket-keeper, Heinrich Klaasen grabbed all the headlines on Thursday, 31st October as he became the most expensive player ever retained in the history of the IPL.
The 33-year old Klaasen has been retained for a whopping 23 crores, whereas the retention slab was for 18 crores. Virat Kohli is the highest-ever retained player when it comes to Indians with 21 crores with RCB. While, LSG's Nicolas Pooran has also fetched 21 crores ahead of the IPL 2025 Mega Auction.
Klaasen was one of the standout performers for Hyderabad in the last IPL season. He amassed a total of 479 runs across 16 matches at a strike-rate of 171.07. Last season, SRH finished runners-up, while Kolkata lifted the title after a gap of 10 years. The Orange Army has won the trophy only once back in 2016 under the captaincy of David Warner.
Klaasen will be next seen in action during the India-South Africa T20I series, which starts from November 8, before the Indian team leave for Australia for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which is scheduled to take place from November 22.
SRH apart from him, have retained the likes of Pat Cummins, Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy. They have left out the likes of big names in Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan. The Hyderabad side will have one RTM card option, but that can only be an uncapped player. They have to assemble the team within 45 crores.
Sunrisers Hyderabad CONFIRMED Retentions: Heinrich Klaasen (INR 23 crore), Pat Cummins (INR 18 crore), Abhishek Sharma (INR 14 crore), Travis Head (INR 14 crore), Nitish Kumar Reddy (INR 6 crore).
SRH’s Released Players List : Abdul Samad, Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan.