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Following the emergence of reports surrounding Sunrisers Hyderabad’s plan to retain Heinrich Klaasen, Pat Cummins, and Abhishek Sharma as their top three retention before the IPL 2025 mega auction, another startling development about the matter has come to light. It is understood that it was the captain Pat Cummins and not SRH management, who wanted the franchise to keep Heinrich Klaasen as their first retention before the upcoming mega auction.
Notably, Sunrisers Hyderabad are expected to retain Heinrich Klaasen for a whopping INR 23 Crore, 27.7% above the top slab, while keeping their captain Pat Cummins and Abhishek Sharma for INR 18 Crore and INR 14 Crore respectively. But, in their recent report, ESPNcricinfo revealed that many of the IPL franchises approached Heinrich Klaasen with their lucrative offers to sign before the IPL 2025 mega auction due to his incredible performances last season of the tournament.
SRH are still undecided on whether to retain Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy
It led to Australian captain Pat Cummins accepting a pay cut to ensure that the star performer of Sunrisers Hyderabad stayed with the franchise for the IPL 2025 season at a big contract worth INR 23 Crore. In the last season of the IPL, Pat Cummins was the highest paid player in SRH with INR 20.50 Crore contract, but due to his decision to accommodate Heinrich Klaasen, he will be taking a lesser salary of INR 18 Crore next season.
Moreover, while the top three retention for Sunrisers Hyderabad are all but certain, they are still undecided on whether to retain Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy, or use the Right-To-Match (RTM) card on them in the IPL 2025 mega auction. At the same time, it is highly likely that SRH are going to leave out the experienced Bhuvenshwar Kumar and Aiden Markram after sloppy performances from them last season of the IPL.
