IPL 2019: 3 players who are lucky to be retained
IPL franchises announced the final list of players that they retained and released for the 2019 Indian Premier League campaign.
More than 50 players were released overall, including some big names such as Glenn Maxwell, Yuvraj Singh, Jaydev Unadkat, Gautam Gambhir, Pat Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, Wriddhiman Saha, Brendon McCullum, Aaron Finch, Mitchell Starc, Mustafizur Rahman and Chris Woakes.
However, there are a number of players who failed to perform last season and still got retained by their respective franchises ahead of the 12th edition of the IPL.
On this note, here is the list of three retained players who are lucky to be still a part of their franchise.
#1 Kieron Pollard
Kieron Pollard was one of the best all-rounders in the world a few years back and performed consistently ever since he joined Mumbai Indians in 2010.
The 31-year-old played many match-winning knocks for the team and helped the Mumbai based team win three IPL titles. Pollard played 132 IPL games thus far, scoring 1699 runs at an average of 28.13 with the strike rate of 145.73. He also proved to be handy with the ball and recorded 56 IPL wickets to his name.
However, there was a huge downfall in his performances during the last season and he looked like a shadow of his former self. The West Indies international played nine IPL games in 2018 and contributed just 133 runs at an average of 19.00 with a strike rate of 133.00.
His inability to perform exposed MI's middle order a number of times last season, which subsequently cost them many vital points. He was released by the PSL team, Multan Sultans following his poor performances in the PSL's last edition. Mumbai Indians' decision to retain him came as a surprise to many fans.