All the eight franchises of the Indian Premier League (IPL) recently announced their respective lists of players that they retained and released before the upcoming IPL 2021 auction, which will take place in February this year.

Many of the foreign players were sent back into the auction pool due to franchises looking to expand their purses in the auction and try to fill their squad with players more suited to the Indian conditions given that there are hopes of this year’s edition happening at home.    

IPL 2021 player auction date and venue announced

However, despite some major releases in foreign contingent, there were some surprising retentions as well, with many franchises, choosing to keep some players who either didn’t perform well or below expectations.

Team COC presents to you five such overseas players that franchises surprisingly retained.