India’s dashing wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant has reportedly parted ways with the Delhi Capitals (DC) and will go into the IPL 2025 mega-auction pool as the hottest player.

Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhishek Porel and Tristan Stubbs feature in DC’s list of retained players, news agency PTI reported.

According to the report, hectic negotiations were underway for the last one month and a complicated management structure led to Pant leaving the franchise for which he played for eight years and captained in three seasons.

"Once GMR appointed Venugopal Rao as Director of Cricket and Hemang Badani as head coach, the writing was on cards. GMR is also in talks with Shreyas Iyer, under whom the team played its only final in 2020. Iyer is not going to play for KKR," a source tracking DC's development told PTI on the condition of anonymity.

Currently, the DC management structure allows each of the co-owner to run the team for two years.

"This is a complicated structure and it would always be counter-productive for a team. So once management came in hands of GMR, they overhauled it completely," the source said.

As per the report, the GMR-run management decided to release Pant. Things couldn't be salvaged as people close to the cricketer vouched that he had felt "hurt" at the turn of events.

Rishabh Pant is likely to trigger a bidding war at the grand auction next month, and multiple franchises like Lucknow Super Giants and Punjab Kings could break their banks to secure his services.

There are reports also claiming that Pant is seen as an ideal successor to the legendary MS Dhoni and Chennai Super Kings might also go all out for him at the mega auction.

The IPL franchises are allowed to retain up to six players, of which a maximum of five can be capped internationals and two can be uncapped players.

(With PTI Inputs)