Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
The IPL 2025 mega auction will be held on November 24-25 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and since the date is nearing, the excitement gears up around the players as well as the franchises. Gujarat Titans, who won their first-ever IPL title in 2022, had a great season under the captaincy of Hardik Pandya. However, 2024 was a pretty challenging one for the team. Firstly, it saw Hardik Pandya being traded to his old franchise, Mumbai Indians, followed by the franchise giving the captaincy reigns to young Shubman Gill.
With the new season arriving, Gujarat Titans have released their retention list. The retained players are Shubman Gill, Rashid Khan, Sai Sudharsan, Rahul Tewatia, and Shahrukh Khan. GT are now left with one RTM and INR 69 Crore in its purse. After facing challenges in the 2024 season, GT has announced that it needs to strengthen its batting lineup.
In the IPL 2025 mega auction, GT will look for players who can balance their batting and bowling strengths. We have listed five such players GT would consider in the IPL 2025 mega auction.
5 players GT will eye for in IPL 2025 mega auction
Rishabh Pant
Since he is back to his base price of INR 2 Crore, the ex-DC player will look for a team that will pay him handsomely and might even consider him as captain. GT needs a fierce player like Pant, who is in solid form. The wicketkeeper-batsman would be a good choice, seeing Wriddhiman Saha also announcing his retirement across all formats.
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KL Rahul
LSG parted ways with KL Rahul after the 2024 IPL debacle. Rahul led the squad in one playoff appearance while serving as captain for the previous three seasons. Rahul, meanwhile, frequently faced harsh criticism for playing his innings slowly. Rahul is a wicketkeeper-batsman with a wealth of captaincy experience, just like Pant. If they aren't going ahead with the latter, the former player could be the best option.
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Mitchell Starc
The costliest player in IPL history, Mitchell Starc, was released by KKR after bagging his services for a year for INR 24.50 crore. During IPL 2024, he took 17 wickets. However, it is pretty surprising to see KKR not retaining him., GT has a great chance to pick him up and fill the vacuum of a left-arm pacer in the team.
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Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Out of their five retentions, the Gujarat Titans have not kept a single fast bowler. Fast bowlers Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Darshan Nalkande, Kartik Tyagi, Mohit Sharma, Joshua Little, and Spencer Johnson failed to make in GT’s retained list of players for the upcoming editions.
Gujarat is probably one of the clubs that will aggressively pursue Bhuvneshwar at the big auction, as Shami is injured. Bhuvneshwar can make excellent use of the swing movement that is frequently available for new ball pacers during night games at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium.
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Jake Fraser-McGurk
Jake Fraser-McGurk had a great IPL 2024 season, where he scored 330 runs for Delhi Capitals. GT needs a strong opener who can help with the high score on the board. Since DC has released the Australian youngster, GT may grab the opportunity to rope him.
