IPL 2021: Which players will be released, retained by Royal Challengers Bangalore?

The IPL 2021 will hold the auction on February 11 at a venue not yet decided. The BCCI has reportedly given the deadline of January 20 for the franchises to submit the list of players who have been retained and released. While this announcement has made the franchises busy in co-ordinating which players should be released or who should be retained, it makes for an interesting analysis of what the franchise thinks heading into the IPL 2021. Each team will be wanting the best players in order to plug the holes and deficiencies that the team might be suffering from. 

What will be the strategy of the teams heading into the IPL 2021 auction which is reportedly going to take place on February 11? Which players are likely to be released and which players might be retained. Here is an explainer of all these factors. The first team in focus is Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Royal Challengers Bangalore squad in IPL 2020

Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Gurkeerat Mann, Devdutt Padikkal, Aaron Finch, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Kane Richardson, Dale Steyn, Isuru Udana, Moeen Ali, Pawan Negi, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Chris Morris, Pavan Deshpande, Parthiv Patel, Joshua Philippe, Shahbaz Ahamad

Players to be retained

The obvious choices when it comes to retention in the Royal Challengers Bangalore team are Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers, Navdeep Saini, Mohammed Siraj, Devdutt Padikkal, Yuzvendra Chahal and Washington Sundar.

The performances of Mohammed Siraj and Devdutt Padikkal for Royal Challengers Bangalore were simply marvellous and they will form a vital part of the Royal Challengers Bangalore team as they look to desperately end their title drought in IPL. Yuzvendra Chahal, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers are simply too good to be let off and they will be in the side even for IPL 2022 one feels. Navdeep Saini's stock continues to rise and he will also be the key

Players that could be released

For Royal Challengers Bangalore, their lower-middle order was the weak link as they lost the key moments in the IPL 2020 eliminator against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Chris Morris was injured, Gurkeerat Singh also underperformed while Moeen Ali struggled. There are some players who might be let go while some have already retired. 

These are the players who could be released. Dale Steyn, Parthiv Patel, Umesh Yadav, Isuru Udana, Kane Richardson, Joshua Philippe, Moeen Ali are the players whom Royal Challengers Bangalore might release as they look to inject key players who can breach the weakness of the batting or the bowling line-up.