Pant to go into mega auction after not being retained by Delhi Capitals

NewsDC have retained Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs and Abishek Porel

Talks between the DC ownership and Rishabh Pant failed recently  •  AFP/Getty Images

Rishabh Pant will be among the high-profile names at the 2025 IPL mega auction after not being retained by Delhi Capitals (DC). ESPNcricinfo has learned that talks between DC’s ownership group and Pant failed after stretching over the past few months and Wednesday. The franchise, though, has retained four players: the spin pair of Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav, South Africa batter Tristan Stubbs and uncapped Indian wicketkeeper-batter Abishek Porel.

DC will have two RTM card options at the auction, and, it is understood that they will attempt to buy back Pant, who joined the franchise in 2016 and became their key player, including taking over captaincy in 2022. In case DC can’t buy him back in the auction, they will have to pick a new captain. With three capped and one uncapped retentions, DC’s purse will be depleted by at least INR 47 crore (18+14+11+ 4) and they will have INR 73 crore to build their squad at the auction.

Axar had been with DC since 2019, his second franchise after Punjab Kings (PBKS), Kuldeep since 2022 (after five seasons with KKR) and Porel since 2023. Pant, Kuldeep, Axar and Porel had all been retained by DC before the last auction where the franchise had bought Stubbs for his base price of INR 50 lakh (approx. US$ 60,000 at the time).

The turnaround of events concerning Pant’s future at DC have been dramatic. Months leading into the retention deadline (expires Thursday at 5pm IST) it was expected Pant would be DC’s’ top retention. However, it is learnt that not everybody in the leadership group wanted him to continue as the franchise’s captain.

Both DC’s co-owners, GMR Group’s Kiran Grandhi and JSW Sports’ Parth Jindal, had in-person meetings with Pant. It is learned that Pant had his ideas and suggestions of how to go forward. Eventually, though, both the player and the ownership group couldn’t reach an agreement.

In 2021, Pant became the fifth-youngest captain in the IPL when he initially took charge in interim capacity at DC before the franchise retained him in the leadership position which lasted until 2024 season.

Pant led DC in 44 matches from 2021 to 2024 (barring 2023 after his car crash) of which they won 24 and lost 19. As captain, Pant scored 1205 runs while averaging 35.44 – almost identical to his overall IPL average of 35.31 – at a strike rate of 143.96, only slightly worse than his IPL strike rate of 148.93.

Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo