IPL 2023: SRH release Kane Williamson, Nicholas Pooran

HYDERABAD: New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson and West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran have been released by Sunrisers Hyderabad ahead of the mini-auction scheduled on December 23.

A total of 12 players have been released by Sunrisers, with some big names not finding a place in the retention list.

Kiwi skipper was bought for INR 14 crore and led the Hyderabad franchise in the 2022 season.

The batter had a forgettable season as he scored 216 runs in 13 innings. He made his IPL debut for the Orange Army in 2015 and was handed the captaincy reigns in 2018 after David Warner was stripped of his captaincy. The Kiwi player led the team to the final of the 2018 IPL.

Nicholas Pooran had been signed up by Sunrisers for a hefty price tag of INR 10.75 crore. Before playing for the Hyderabad franchise, the left-hander was a part of the Punjab Kings setup.

The team retained dependable Indian pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, South African Aiden Markram, and Umran Malik among other players.

Sunrisers neither secured any transfers nor traded any players ahead of the mini-auction.

The released player's list is as follows - Kane Williamson, Nicholas Pooran, Jagadeesha Suchith, Priyam Garg, Ravikumar Samarth, Romario Shepherd, Saurabh Dubey, Sean Abbott, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Sushant Mishra, Vishnu Vinod. Current squad: Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen, Washington Sundar, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kartik Tyagi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik. The franchise needs to fill four overseas positions, and selecting a new captain will be their priority. The team is young, has a strong pace attack, and could hand over the captaincy to a young player.