IPL 2026 squad reset: who CSK, DC, GT, KKR and LSG released, signed and reshaped before the season opened.
The Athletic's 27 March 2026 franchise preview, read here as a roster-architecture piece. The day before the 19th IPL edition began, The Athletic profiled five franchises in turn and recorded exactly who each one had kept, released, traded, bought and let go. Read against one another, those five rosters describe a season of structural resets: a five-time champion rebuilding through a single trade and two uncapped fees, a Delhi side reshuffling under a two-year ownership rotation, a Gujarat side leaning on a 72.54 per cent top-three carry, a Kolkata side rebuilding from a 12-man base around one record overseas buy, and a Lucknow side whose captain cost more than any player in league history.
Why the 27 March 2026 squad lists still matter
On 27 March 2026, The Athletic published a five-franchise preview of the IPL season that was, in every meaningful sense, about to begin. The 19th edition opened the next day. That timing matters because the preview was not really about how the season would play out. It was a roster picture taken at the last legal moment before the squads had to take the field. Every franchise had already published its retained list, its released list, its trade window, its mega-auction shopping list, its mini-auction shopping list and its coaching staff. The preview simply recorded what those five franchises had done with those levers, and what the composition of the resulting 22-man roster implied.
Reading it again, several months on, the value of the preview is not predictive. It is structural. It named which franchises had treated the off-season as a one-year fix and which had treated it as a multi-year reset. It named which franchise had paid for ceiling, which for continuity, which for a domestic discovery, and which for a marquee captain. The fantasy-side read is that the questions the preview asked of each squad were the same questions the season would answer over the following weeks. The roster lists are durable record. The preview recorded them cleanly.
For fantasy managers going back over the 2026 season, the practical question is which of those decisions have aged well and which have aged quickly. The five squads profiled were Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Capitals, Gujarat Titans, Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow Super Giants. They were not the five eventual finalists - Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Punjab Kings, Mumbai Indians, Gujarat Titans and Delhi Capitals were the top four in the 2025 standings, and RCB won the 2025 title. They were the five franchises whose 2026 off-season had produced the most distinctive story. The Athletic picked them on editorial grounds. The preview is the better for it.
The broader league context matters too. India had won back-to-back men's T20 World Cup titles in 2024 and 2026, with a women's ODI World Cup in between. Two of the league's most visible franchise ownership transfers had cleared through 2025: Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a consortium led by the Aditya Birla Group at $1.78 billion, and Rajasthan Royals to Kal Somani at $1.63 billion. The Gujarat Titans had already changed hands internally, with the Torrent Group buying 67 per cent of GT from CVC Capital Partners for about $600 million in February 2025. All of that fed into how each franchise went into the 2026 auction room - but it was the squad lists themselves that the preview captured.
Chennai Super Kings: a 10th-place finish answered with one trade, two uncapped fees and a head coach in his 17th season
CSK's 2026 roster was the clearest case study in the preview of how a five-time champion handles its worst-ever finish. The franchise had ended 2025 in 10th place. The home ground was unchanged - the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium at Chepauk, the lowest-scoring regular venue in the IPL. The head coach was Stephen Fleming, who has now held the role continuously since 2009. The captain was Ruturaj Gaikwad, in his first full season in charge. The ownership group at Chennai Super Kings Cricket Ltd had not moved at the parent-company level. From the outside, the franchise looked structurally similar to the side that had finished 10th.
The two roster moves that defined CSK's off-season were unusual. The first was the trade with Rajasthan Royals that brought Sanju Samson to Chennai in exchange for Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran - the largest player exchange in IPL history, by both the volume of talent moved and the structural reset it forced on both franchises at once. Samson is one of the very few batters in the IPL who can open the innings, bat at three, keep wicket and absorb spin-heavy middle phases without losing tempo. For a CSK top order that had lost its long-form anchors across 2024 and 2025, that was the brief the franchise had not been able to fill from inside its own squad. For RR, the return of Jadeja and Sam Curran freed a balance sheet the 2024 auction had stretched thin and brought back a left-arm spin allrounder who can bat at six.
The second move was at the uncapped end of the market. CSK bought Prashant Veer and Kartik Sharma for Rs 14.20 crore each, a record fee for uncapped Indian players in the IPL. The Athletic framed both purchases as the result of competing bidder pressure rather than proven IPL impact, and that framing is the right one. What the fees did signal was that CSK's recruitment desk had decided, for the first time in a long time, to fund fresh domestic names rather than recycle an ageing core. For fantasy managers, the implication was straightforward. The CSK XI would need to find room for both uncapped buys at some point in the 2026 campaign, and the captain's early-season judgement calls would centre on when, not whether.
What the composition actually tells a fantasy manager
The shape of the 2026 CSK roster is closer to a two-year rebuild than a one-year bounce. A side that finished 10th the previous season rarely takes a sharp turn back to the top of the table in a single off-season, no matter how loud the marquee move has been in the headline cycle. Chepauk rewards spinners, rewards disciplined batting, and rewards length at the top of the order. CSK had retained a settled coaching structure, a familiar captain and a venue that fits its template. The Samson trade addressed the top-order problem directly. The Veer and Sharma purchases addressed the depth-chart problem over a longer horizon. That is not a roster designed to win the 2026 title. It is a roster designed to stop a slide and re-establish the template.
The preview was honest about the ceiling. The franchise's longer template was closer to a two-year rebuild than a one-year bounce. The bet, in the preview's plain reading, was not "win the title in 2026". It was "stop the slide and re-establish the template". A retrospective should preserve that read.
Delhi Capitals: an ownership handover, a new captain and a domestic seam-bowling record-breaker
Delhi Capitals went into the 2026 auction with two structural changes that no other franchise in the preview had on its plate. The first was at the parent-company level. GMR and JSW co-own the franchise on a two-year rotational structure. GMR runs the men's team through 2026; JSW takes the men's side from 2027. The preview noted that the rotation had not changed the squad-building approach in the short term, but that it had sharpened the franchise's incentive to make moves that would read well in 2026 specifically. A side whose parent group is handing over the keys in twelve months has a structural reason to maximise the present window, and that is exactly what an aggressive auction is for.
The second structural change was at the captaincy level. Axar Patel, the spin-bowling allrounder who had led Delhi intermittently through 2025, was named captain for the full 2026 season. The head coach was Hemang Badani, the former Tamil Nadu batter who had worked his way up from the DC support staff. The home ground remained the Arun Jaitley Stadium in the capital. None of those decisions moved the squad on its own. Together, they shifted the centre of gravity inside the franchise - away from a leadership group that had been rotating through the season, and toward a clearer brief for the coming one.
The most interesting DC pick was Auqib Nabi, the Jammu and Kashmir seamer nicknamed the Baramulla Express. Nabi had taken 60 Ranji Trophy wickets in 2025-26 at an average of 12.56, becoming only the third fast bowler in the 92-year history of the Ranji Trophy to reach 60 wickets in a single season. The Athletic framed the signing as one of the more interesting domestic picks of the auction and pointed out that DC had a clear seam-bowling vacancy to fill. For fantasy managers, the preview was careful to note two things at once. A fast bowler who has ripped through a domestic season can take time to translate that form into short-form cricket. T20 leagues reward specific death-over skills that a Ranji-record-class bowler might not have had to use in red-ball cricket. The signing was promising. The expected impact window was not the first week.
Why the opening slot was the harder problem DC did not solve
DC's roster list also revealed the problem the franchise had not been able to fix at the auction table. Mitchell Starc was unavailable at the start of IPL 2026 to manage his workload with Cricket Australia. Ben Duckett had withdrawn from the tournament. The opening slot was described as unsettled, with KL Rahul the likely anchor and Pathum Nissanka the most likely partner. The preview did not try to rank those options against each other. It simply recorded that DC had not picked the path of least resistance, and that the batting order at the top would carry some uncertainty into the first few weeks of the season. That is a reasonable note for any fantasy manager to carry into the first fixtures.
The combined effect on the 2026 DC roster is a side with a settled middle order and a captain who is a middle-order batter himself, a new seam-bowling discovery, and a top order that has not been solved. The preview read the combination without dramatising it. That is the honest framing.
Gujarat Titans: the smallest delta, the largest top-three carry, and the 72.54 per cent question
Gujarat Titans had the easiest roster in the preview to read on 27 March 2026, because the 2025 numbers did most of the talking. The franchise had finished third on the table, lost the Eliminator, and produced the season's two most-cited individual awards. Prasidh Krishna had won the 2025 Purple Cap with 25 wickets. Sai Sudharsan had won the Orange Cap with 759 runs. Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler had combined for 72.54 per cent of GT's total runs in 2025, the highest top-three concentration in the league. That is a structural fact about how the runs were distributed, not a form observation about any one of the three. It tells a fantasy manager that GT's batting production had been more concentrated at the top than any other side in the IPL.
The home ground was the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, the largest cricket ground in the world with a capacity of more than 130,000. The captain was Shubman Gill. The head coach was Ashish Nehra. The cap table had moved in February 2025, when the Torrent Group bought 67 per cent of the franchise from CVC Capital Partners for about $600 million, with CVC retaining 33 per cent. The preview flagged the change because it had not yet shown up in the squad composition - the head coach, captain and core Indian players were unchanged. The change would eventually matter for long-term decisions, but not for the brief the 2026 roster had been built to deliver.
GT's roster bet was the most legible of the five. The franchise was the most top-heavy batting unit in the league and would need its middle order to contribute more than 27 per cent of the runs if the side was going to compete for the title. Top-order-heavy sides can win if the top three stay fit; they can disappear if any of them misses a chunk of the season. The preview framed GT as a side with a clear identity, a clear ceiling and a clear list of things that could go wrong - which is about as honest as a pre-season preview can be. The individual awards from 2025 did not project forward; the structure did.
Reading 72.54 per cent against a fantasy XI
The 72.54 per cent figure is worth pausing on. No other franchise in the 2025 IPL had a top three that accounted for that share of total runs. The next-highest top-three concentration in the league was meaningfully lower. The gap is a fantasy signal, not a record. It means GT's batting points, in the recent past, have been unusually concentrated at the top of the order - which means GT fantasy captain picks should default to the top three rather than spread across the XI. It also means a single injury to any of the three has a larger effect on GT's run-scoring than a single injury on a more evenly distributed side. The preview did not project that forward; it did flag the structural fact.
What the Orange and Purple Caps did and did not mean together
Sudharsan winning the Orange Cap and Krishna winning the Purple Cap meant that GT had the previous season's leading run-scorer and leading wicket-taker on the same roster. That is rare. The preview was careful not to project those individual returns forward, because batting and bowling number-one finishes rarely repeat in the same season. The useful read for fantasy was that GT had the league's most concentrated batting output in 2025, the league's most prolific wicket-taker in 2025, and a stable coaching setup. That combination is not always a title-winning combination, but it is rarely a non-playoff combination. The preview named the combination without claiming more for it.
Kolkata Knight Riders: 12 retentions, four unavailable names and one record overseas buy
KKR's section of the preview was the densest of the five and the one that carried the most roster-level risk for the 2026 slate. The franchise had retained only 12 players, the fewest in the league, after finishing eighth in 2025 while defending the 2024 title. That thin retention base would have meant a busy auction under any circumstances. The preview made it busier by listing the players who were unavailable at the start of the 2026 season. Akash Deep was out with a back injury. Harshit Rana had had knee surgery and could miss most of the season. Matheesha Pathirana had no NOC from SLC, meaning he was unavailable until mid-April. Mustafizur Rahman was out because of a BCCI-BCB diplomatic dispute. Andre Russell had retired at the end of the 2025 season. Sunil Narine, KKR's all-time leading wicket-taker, was the only established name from the title-winning core who was both available and likely to hold a starting spot.
Against that backdrop, the auction picks stood out. Cameron Green had been signed for $2.8 million, the most expensive overseas buy in IPL history. Pathirana had been signed for $2.1 million, though his availability was uncertain. Rachin Ravindra and Finn Allen, two New Zealand internationals, had also been added. The preview did not try to claim that those four signings replaced what KKR had lost. Green alone is not Andre Russell, and no auction can replace a wrist-spinner who is locked out of the early season by an SLC NOC dispute. What the preview did claim was that the franchise had decided to buy ceiling - multi-role overseas players who can bat, bowl and field at a high level - rather than continuity.
Why the Green signing changed the brief, not the risk
Cameron Green's $2.8 million fee is the kind of figure that compresses a preview into a single line. The substance is more interesting. Green is one of the very few overseas players in the league who can bat at three, bowl medium pace at the death and field at a high level in the inner ring. That is a brief no other overseas player on the market fully fits, and the fee paid for it. The preview did not claim that the brief solved KKR's availability problem. It claimed that the franchise had paid for the brief it could afford to pay for, and that the brief would land cleanly if - and only if - the players around Green held up. The risk had not moved. It had changed shape.
The backroom reset that matched the squad reset
The backroom changes at KKR were as significant as the squad changes. Abhishek Nayar had been promoted to head coach. Shane Watson was the assistant coach. Dwayne Bravo was the mentor. Tim Southee was the bowling coach. The captain was Ajinkya Rahane, the experienced India batter who had been moved into the leadership role after the 2025 defence had ended at the group stage. The preview's verdict for KKR was the most conditional of the five. The franchise had the talent to compete for a playoff spot, but it had more injury and availability risk than any other side in the league, and a new-look coaching group. The expected floor was mid-table. The expected ceiling was a playoff return if the overseas names hit from week one. That conditionality was the honest read of an overseas-ceiling roster that had been forced to be built under an availability shadow.
Lucknow Super Giants: a $3.2 million captain, a recovered Shami and a mystery-spinner retention
LSG's section was the shortest of the five but carried the most expensive single fact. Rishabh Pant had been signed at the 2025 mega-auction for $3.2 million, the most expensive purchase in IPL history. The preview noted that Pant was the only active franchise captain yet to reach an IPL final. That is a quietly remarkable stat. In a league where captaincy and franchise continuity have been rewarded with playoff finishes for most of the 19 seasons, the most expensive individual signing in the league's history belongs to a captain whose IPL career arc has, so far, peaked at the league stage. The preview did not say that was a reason for pessimism. It said it was a reason for honest framing. LSG were paying a record fee for a player whose career arc with the bat and behind the stumps had not yet been matched by a finals-week appearance.
The 2026 setup at LSG was new enough to deserve a clean paragraph. The captain was Rishabh Pant. The head coach was Justin Langer, with Bharat Arun added to the backroom staff. The home ground was the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. The ownership sat with the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, which had paid $850 million for the franchise in 2021, then the most expensive IPL acquisition. The Goenka Group had also bought 70 per cent of Manchester Originals in The Hundred, rebranded Manchester Super Giants for the 2026 season. The preview flagged that cross-league ownership structure as a quiet but persistent influence on LSG's bidding at the top of the auction table - the group had a reason to want a marquee Indian name in its marquee cricket league.
The 2025 breakout name on the LSG roster was Digvesh Rathi, a mystery spinner who had taken 14 wickets in 13 matches. Mohammed Shami had been signed at the mini-auction, recovering from the injury that had ruled him out of the 2024 season. Mayank Yadav, the young quick, had clocked over 96 mph in his debut season. The preview framed LSG as a side that had the most expensive player in the league, a pace attack that could stress the speed guns and a spin option that could take wickets in the middle overs. The franchise had not been to an IPL final. The preview was careful about framing Pant's individual record against the team's structural ceiling.
What a $3.2 million captain does to a fantasy draft plan
The fantasy-side read of a record-fee captain is mechanical. A captain who costs $3.2 million is, by construction, expected to bat in the top four and to keep wicket. That concentrates points in one slot and reduces the upside available elsewhere in the XI. For fantasy managers, that means LSG's batting points will skew toward Pant in a way that no other franchise in 2026 can match - and that the captaincy decision inside an LSG fantasy XI almost always starts with Pant. The preview did not say that. It said LSG were paying a record fee for a player whose franchise-level career arc had not yet peaked at the finals stage. The fantasy consequence - that the captaincy arithmetic inside an LSG XI is unusually concentrated - falls out of the same fact.
Five squad lists, one 2026 season
Reading the 27 March 2026 preview as five separate roster resets changes the kind of question the season was supposed to answer. CSK's reset was about whether one trade and two uncapped fees could stop a slide. Delhi's reset was about whether an ownership handover and a domestic seam-bowling discovery could resolve a top-order problem. Gujarat's reset was the lightest in absolute terms and the heaviest in concentration terms. Kolkata's reset was about whether overseas ceiling could be paid for cleanly enough to absorb an availability shadow. Lucknow's reset was about whether a record-fee captain could move a franchise to its first finals week.
None of those questions were answerable on 27 March. They were all answerable by the closing weeks of the season, and the preview's value is in preserving the questions cleanly enough to compare them against the answers the season eventually produced. A pre-season document that names the questions honestly, without inventing a winner, is a useful thing to come back to once the season is over. The Athletic's 27 March 2026 franchise-by-franchise preview was that kind of document. It stayed inside the dossier it had built. It did not project injury lists. It did not claim that any single signing was franchise-defining. It framed each side's ceiling in terms of the question the franchise was publicly asking of its squad, and it left the answers to the season.
For fantasy managers, the preview's value is structural. The roster resets each franchise made are durable record. CSK had the largest trade in IPL history and a fresh domestic core to integrate. Delhi had a rotational ownership structure, a new opening slot and a domestic fast-bowling record-breaker in the squad. Gujarat had the highest top-three batting concentration in the competition and the previous season's leading run-scorer and wicket-taker. Kolkata had the most expensive overseas buy in the league's history and the smallest retained roster. Lucknow had the most expensive individual signing in the league's history and a captain whose career arc had not yet peaked at the finals stage. Those five facts still define the early weeks of any 2026 fantasy slate, and the preview named them when it was useful to do so.
Five squads, five resets, one opening day. That is the shape the 19th IPL took into 28 March 2026, and the shape the preview captured without trying to crown a winner. Read back now, the roster composition is the more useful artefact than any prediction the preview might have made. The questions are still worth asking. The squad lists that produced the answers are the durable record, and the full per-franchise depth charts, retained-player lists and overseas-slot maps are kept current on the IPL Teams and Squads desk for the fantasy manager who needs the data alongside the 27 March reset.