The IPL 2021 festival has begun with all the eight franchises announcing their retained and released players for the upcoming season. The players, who have been retained, will not be a part of the auction, likely to be held in the second week of February.

The first team to reveal the list is Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), retaining 12 and releasing as many as 10 players from their last year’s squad.

Among the list of players retained by RCB include Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Yuzvendra Chahal, Devdutt Padikkal, Washington Sundar, Mohammed Siraj, Navdeep Saini, Adam Zampa, Shahbaz Ahmed, Josh Philippe, Kane Richardson and Pawan Deshpande.

On the other hand, RCB let go Chris Morris, Aaron Finch, Moeen Ali, Isuru Udana, Dale Steyn*, Shivam Dube, Umesh Yadav, Pawan Negi, Gurkeerat Mann, Parthiv Patel*

Royal Challengers Bangalore announced their retained players on Twitter.

Note: (* = Retired/Opted out)