New Delhi, Nov 26 (IANS): Ben Stokes, Dwaine Pretorius, Ambati Rayudu and Kyle Jamieson are amongst the eight players to be released by Chennai Super Kings, with the IPL 2024 player retention deadline set to end at 5pm on Sunday.

Stokes, England’s Test captain, had opted out of IPL 2024 due to managing his workload and fitness. A series of injuries had limited his IPL 2023 participation to just two games, after being bought by the franchise for INR 16.25 crore.

Pretorius, the former South Africa all-rounder, didn’t get much game time in Chennai’s victorious IPL 2023 season. Rayudu had retired from IPL once Chennai beat Gujarat Titans, while Jamieson was unavailable for the 2023 season due to back injury.

Other players released by Chennai include South Africa pacer Sisanda Magala, who was also struggling with injuries in IPL 2023, as well as Bhagath Varma, Subhranshu Senapati and Akash Singh, who played a few matches for the franchise in their last IPL season.

Chennai now have a purse of INR 32.1 crore, and have six slots remaining in their team, three of which are overseas. They will now aim to fill the slots in the IPL mini-auction to be held on December 19 in Dubai.