Recently, the eight franchises participating in the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) confirmed the players they sought to retain for the 11th season of the T20 League. The franchises revealed their retentions as few of them were on the expected lines. Though some picks were obvious, some were surprising.

The maximum number of players that each franchise can opt for is five, in two stages. The first is via the Player Retention, and the second through the Right to Match (RTM) which will take place during the IPL player auction on January 27-28.

What’s surprising is some of the players who managed hold on to their teams raised a lot of eyebrows. It was a great comeback for Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals after 2 years of a ban from the League. The former side was the first to declare their retentions. CSK is the only team to have qualified for the playoffs in all eight editions of the league.

CSK retained its favorite captain MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja. Recently, former Indian captain Dhoni has revealed the plans of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) ahead of the IPL auction. However, it remains to be seen what kind of players they pick for the upcoming season the cash-rich T20 league.

Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings would like to continue their prowess in the upcoming season with a bang. In this regard, Dhoni has urged the franchise to buy the local players in the team during the auction. Dhoni, especially insisted that they will go for Ravichandran Ashwin and want him in the team at any cost as he is the local boy.

For your kind information, CSK cannot use Right to Match (RTM) card for Ashwin as they have already retained three Indians. “We will definitely go for Ashwin in the auction. He is a local lad. We want a lot of local players in CSK,” Dhoni said at a promotional event in Chennai.

“We also have Brendon McCullum, Faf du Plessis and Dwayne Bravo (our former players). We have two RTMs. But we have to know when and where to use them. With Ashwin, we cannot use the RTM as we have already got three Indian players retained. We have to buy him in the auction. He will come first in the auction. But as I said, we will have to wait and watch. We will try to get him,” he added.

Dhoni also pointed that a lot of teams target the former players of the franchise at the auction.

“At an auction, we also have to look at how much money we can afford to go for each individual as we look to make a strong team. In the past, we have seen a lot of teams target former CSK players. We may have to keep the emotions aside, we may want somebody, but if his price goes outside our range, we have to let him go because we have to focus on making the complete side,” MS Dhoni concluded.

Meanwhile, MS Dhoni is a part of limited overs squad to plays ODI and T20I series against South Africa. He was aware of the CSK team composition and would be having an eye on the auctions from South Africa.

The IPL auction 2018 will begin on January 27 at Bangalore and end on until January 28. All the franchises are busy in shortlisting the players that they would want to go for and they have been on their toes. Even fans are eagerly waiting to see as to which all players are bought by their favorite teams

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