Here Are the Players That Lucknow Super Giants Retained and Released for IPL 2026

ByAnupam Pandey,SportsCafe Editor

Today at 1:04 AM

Lucknow Super Giants confirmed their retention and releases ahead of the IPL 2026 auction. The franchise kept key names like Rishabh Pant, Nicholas Pooran, Mitchell Marsh and Mayank Yadav, while releasing players such as David Miller, Ravi Bishnoi and Shamar Joseph.

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LSG enters the auction with a purse of Rs 22.95 crore and six available slots including four overseas. The team from Nawabo ke Sheher, the Lucknow Super Giants, is stepping into its fifth IPL season with a fresh mindset and some big decisions already creating a stir. As the build-up to IPL 2026 gathers pace, the franchise has made a few bold calls in its released and retained players list. After a disappointing seventh-place finish in the IPL 2025 season, the management felt it was the right moment to rethink the squad and move on from a few names who could not deliver as expected.

At the same time, the team has chosen to keep faith in several players who still have the potential to repay the trust shown in them and the previous season was a mixed one for Lucknow as the side managed only six wins from fourteen matches while ending up on the losing side eight times. With Rishabh Pant leading the group, the focus now is on approaching the IPL 2026 auction with better planning and a clearer strategy and while some players have been shown the exit door, the overall intention has been to preserve the core of the team and aim for a more settled and confident campaign.

Retained Players

The first name on the retention list of the IPL 2026 for the Lucknow Super Giants is Rishabh Pant, the captain of the team. Despite making just 269 runs in the last season, the team management has decided to retain him. Coming to the batting department, the big names such as Aiden Markram and Mitchell Marsh have been retained, who were the core of the team in the last season and with more than 1000 runs combined from these two batters, the team will be expecting another big season from the openers.

In the middle order, the reliable Ayush Badoni, who made 329 runs from the 11 innings, has been retained ahead of the IPL 2026 and the big hitter Abdul Samad, striking at a strike rate of 170+, has also been retained by the team for the upcoming season. Arshin Kulkarni and Matthew Breetzke are the two names on whom the management will be relying in the upcoming season as the backups.

LSG Retained Players List:

Abdul Samad
Ayush Badoni
Aiden Markram
Matthew Breetzke
Himmat Singh
Rishabh Pant (C)
Nicholas Pooran
Mitchell Marsh
Shahbaz Ahmed
Arshin Kulkarni
Mayank Yadav
Avesh Khan
Mohsin Khan
Manimaran Siddharth
Digvesh Rathi
Prince Yadav
Akash Singh
Mohammed Shami (Traded from Sunrisers Hyderabad for INR 10 Crores)
Arjun Tendulkar (Traded from Mumbai Indians for INR 30 Lakhs)

The one wicket-keeper batsman who has been the best player for the Lucknow Super Giants team is Nicholas Pooran, who managed to get 524 runs from the 14 innings played in the last season. Alongside him, Shahbaz Ahmed has managed to make his place in the retention list of the Lucknow Super Giants. From the list of bowlers, Avesh Khan and Mohsin Khan are the ones on whom the management trusts to deliver in the death overs of the game.

From the spin department of the team, Digvesh Rathi looked to be the key player of the team in the IPL 2025 as he picked up 14 wickets from the 13 matches played and hence the team management has decided to give him another season. Besides this, the young Akash Singh has also been retained by the team along with the likes of Mayank Yadav, Manimaran Siddharth, Prince Yadav and Himmat Singh in the team.

Traded Players

Ahead of the IPL 2026 Auction, the Lucknow Super Giants management decided to take advantage of the IPL Trade window and managed to acquire two players from the other teams in the competition and the addition of Mohammed Shami to the squad has been a big positive for the team and he was traded from the Sunrisers Hyderabad for an amount of INR 10 Crores, and hence the team will be looking forward to pairing him up with the pacer Mayank Yadav in the upcoming season and another player who will be wearing the jersey of LSG is Arjun Tendulkar, who was traded from the Mumbai Indians for INR 30 Lakhs, along with Shardul Thakur, leaving the team for MI.

Released Players

For the fans of the Lucknow Super Giants, the list of released players has come as a big shock. The first name on the list of the released players is Ravi Bishnoi, the leg-spinner who was a key player for the team. With just 9 wickets in the 11 matches last season, the team management finally decided to release the young gun. Another name who came as a shock to the management was David Miller. The hard-hitter, who is known for his hitting skill, managed to have just 153 runs from 11 innings and with a strike rate of 127.50 in the IPL 2025.

LSG Released Players List:

Aryan Juyal - 30 Lakhs
David Miller - 7.5 Crore (Foreign)
Yuvraj Chaudhary - 30 Lakhs
Rajvardhan Hangargekar - 30 Lakhs
Akash Deep - 8 Crore
Will O’Rourke - 3 Crore (Foreign)
Ravi Bishnoi - 11 Crore
Shamar Joseph - 75 Lakhs (Foreign)
Shardul Thakur - 2 Crore (Traded to Mumbai Indians)

Akash Deep, who played 6 matches last season and picked up just 3 wickets for the team, has also been released by the team and other young players like Aryan Juyal, Yuvraj Chaudhary and Rajvardhan Hangargekar will also be available in the IPL 2026 Auction for the other teams. Overseas players like Will O’Rourke who picked 6 wickets from the 3 matches played, has been released by the team along with Shamar Joseph.

Purse Remaining

With a big list of the players retained by the Lucknow Super Giants, the team management will be looking forward to filling in the gaps on the IPL Auction 2026 day. The team will be entering the auction with a purse of INR 22.95 Crore and will be looking forward to filling in 6 slots where they have a chance of adding 4 Overseas players too.

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