Green to miss IPL as only two Aussies retained

Cameron Green will miss the Indian Premier League season following the back surgery that is ruling him out of the Test summer.

It comes as a slew of Australians, including the highest-paid player in tournament history Mitchell Starc, were overlooked for new deals with their IPL franchises.

Green, who recently underwent surgery on a stress fracture detected during Australia's white-ball tour of the UK, will miss the home Test series against India and the tour of Sri Lanka that begins in late January.

The allrounder is not expected to be back playing until April at the earliest and it will take longer for him to resume bowling.

While dates for the next IPL have not yet been confirmed, the tournament is expected to run between March and May.

Once the highest-paid Australian in the IPL, Green had appeared a chance to play in the tournament as a specialist batter when he booked in for surgery last month.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru were keen on retaining the 25-year-old despite dropping him during the 2024 tournament, where he earned a $3.15m contract.

But the franchise confirmed overnight Thursday that Green would not be available for next year's tournament.

"There was one other player we certainly would've retained, that's Cameron Green. But unfortunately he's out of IPL due to injury," said RCB director of cricket Mo Bobat.

Big-hitting Travis Head and Test captain Pat Cummins were the only Australians retained by their franchises, remaining at Sunrisers Hyderabad on contracts respectively worth A$2.5m and A$3.18m.

Head was the fourth-top run-scorer in the tournament's 2024 edition, when Cummins took 18 wickets in 16 matches at 31.44 for runners-up Sunrisers.

With franchises able to retain a maximum of five incumbent players, the remaining Australians who played IPL in 2024 will need to go to auction to remain in the league.

Jake Fraser-McGurk was unable to be retained by Delhi Capitals, as he joined the last tournament as a replacement player.  

Chennai Super Kings

 

Retained: Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja, Matheesha Pathirana, Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni

 

 

Delhi Capitals

 

Retained: Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, Abishek Porel

 

Australians released: David Warner, Mitch Marsh, Jhye Richardson 

 

 

Gujarat Titans

 

Retained: Rashid Khan, Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan

 

Australians released: Spencer Johnson, Matthew Wade

 

 

Kolkata Knight Riders

 

Retained: Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh

 

Australians released: Mitch Starc

 

 

Lucknow Super Giants

 

Retained: Nicholas Pooran, Ravi Bishnoi, Mayank Yadav (INR 11 crore), Mohsin Khan (INR 4 crore), Ayush Badoni 

 

Australians released: Marcus Stoinis, Ashton Turner

 

 

Mumbai Indians

 

Retained: Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rohit Sharma, Tilak Varma

 

Australians released: Tim David, Jason Behrendorff

 

 

Punjab Kings

 

Retained: Shashank Singh, Prabhsimran Singh

 

Australians released: Nathan Ellis

 

 

Rajasthan Royals

 

Retained: Sanju Samson, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Shimron Hetmyer, Sandeep Sharma

 

 

Royal Challengers Bangalore

 

Retained: Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Yash Dayal 

 

Australians released: Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green

 

 

Sunrisers Hyderabad

 

Retained: Heinrich Klaasen, Pat Cummins, Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Nitish Kumar Reddy

Starc, Glenn Maxwell, David Warner, Marcus Stoinis, Mitch Marsh and Tim David were among the Australian international mainstays who missed out on extensions to contracts worth more than $1m in 2024.

Starc's omission is particularly glaring after the explosive left-arm quick became the highest-paid player in tournament history, signing a $4.42m contract with Kolkata Knight Riders for 2024.

The 34-year-old starred in the final to help Kolkata win the title but struggled for consistency playing IPL for the first time since 2015, finishing the tournament as his side's equal-fourth most prolific wicket-taker.

The IPL auction is expect to go ahead in either late November or early December.