The two most successful franchises in IPL history, CSK and Mumbai Indians, have revealed their first retained players for IPL 2026, and they both belong to the same country, and it is not India.
Whenever there is talk of IPL, Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians are definitely mentioned. Not only the fact that they have been champions 5-5 times, but there are many other reasons as well. One such reason is their intense rivalry.
Apart from this, both the teams have given platform to many young cricketers who later became legends for their country.
From Chennai Super Kings’ Suresh Raina, Ravi Ashwin, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ravindra Jadeja and Shivam Dubey to MI’s Jasprit Bumrah, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya and many more.
CSK and MI retain Afghan spinners ahead of mini-auction
With just three days left for all the IPL teams to announce retentions, RevSportz Assistant Editor Subhayan Chakraborty has made a surprising revelation on the CSK and MI stars who are to be retained.
As per claims, they are likely to retain Noor Ahmed, who had a great performance with Men in Yellow.
This was perhaps the most productive season for Noor despite CSK’s consistently poor performances. The spinner played one less match than Prasidh Kirshana of Gujarat Titans and took one wicket less than the highest.
In 14 matches, Noor Ahmed took 24 wickets with very controlled economy. On the other hand, it seems quite unlikely for Mumbai Indians to retain their claim.
Allah Ghazanfar was selected as their frontline spinner, but was ruled out before the start of the season due to injury, and has seen a major decline in his form recently.
Noor Ahmed – CSK (retained)
Allah Ghazanfar – Mumbai Indians (retained)
– Subhayan Chakraborty (@CricSubhayan) 11 November 2025
Ravindra Jadeja’s departure will leave Chennai Super Kings short of spin options
The veteran Indian all-rounder, who has been one of the most loyal servants of Chennai Super Kings since 2012 when he first arrived in the team, has been accused of a conspiracy to betray him. In between when the team was banned from IPL, he played a few seasons with Gujarat Lions.
But for the glory of Ravindra Jadeja, he is going back to his former franchise, Rajasthan Royals, with whom he started his IPL career in 2008.
After Jaddu’s departure from CSK, the main pillar of CSK’s spin bowling will leave Chepauk.
Noor will lead the spinners, but with Ravichandran Ashwin retiring and Jadeja gone, CSK will have to bring in new faces who can spin the ball along with the Afghan chinaman bowler.
Mumbai Indians face massive spinner crisis in IPL 2025
Mumbai Indians reached Qualifier 2 before losing to Punjab Kings in the knockout game. They finished third in the season and played excellent cricket, especially with the bat.
The bowlers did a pretty good job, but obviously they lacked good spinners in the middle stages.
They had Mitchell Santner in the team but could not bring him to his full potential, while young Vignesh Puthur made some undeniably useful contributions.
However, Karn Sharma or Mujeeb Ur Rahman did not look like they could answer Mumbai Indians’ spin issues. Will Jacques also played a part-time role as an off-spinner.
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