Australian limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch and South African pace-allrounder Chris Morris are among the star players that have been released by the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) for the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). 

Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Devdutt Padikkal and Mohammed Siraj are among the 12 players the Bangalore franchise retained ahead of the 2021 auction. 

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RCB director of cricket operations Mike Hesson said, “Our thoughts regarding the retention list was making sure we kept a large core of players from the previous year. We made some good progress last year, made the semi-finals for the first time in three years and showed some really good progress and we wanted to reward players in that respect.”

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“But we also knew we still had some gaps in our playing staff in terms of certain areas of the game, the middle overs was an area where we needed to make some progress, but all-in-all we’re very happy with the 12 players we have kept on board.”

RCB have kept faith in their young players, retaining the likes of opener Padikkal, all-rounders Shahbaz Ahmed and Washington Sundar and pacers Siraj and Naveep Saini. Australian trio Joshua Philippe, Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson and Karnataka all-rounder Pavan Deshpande have also been retained.

The other players to have been released by the franchise are Moeen Ali, Isuru Udana, Umesh Yadav, Shivam Dube, Pawan Negi, Gurkeerat Mann Singh and Partiv Patel. Veteran South African paceman Dale Steyn had made himself unavailable for the forthcoming edition of the IPL. 

The auction for IPL 2021 are scheduled to be held on February 11.