Flamboyant all-rounder Hardik Pandya moved to Punjab Kings from Mumbai Indians at an increased fee of Rs 18 crore, while PBKS traded pacer Arshdeep Singh for him, completing the biggest and most high-profile exchange of players in the history of IPL.
Pandya’s existing fee was Rs 16.35 crore. Arshdeep, on the other hand, moved to Mumbai at an unchanged price tag of Rs 18 crore, read a statement from the IPL.
Before this, Chennai Super Kings had acquired Sanju Samson this year for Rs 18 crore from Rajasthan Royals, who got Ravindra Jadeja for Rs 14 crore and Sam Curran for Rs 2.4 crore from CSK. Transfer Fee is a bipartite agreement between two franchises and it is independent of retention fee (the salary paid to a player by the franchise).
It was mutually decided by the two teams that Pandya’s trade fee will go up by Rs 1.65 crore and as per existing rules, he would get 50 per cent of the hike. The rest would go to Mumbai Indians. Pandya’s trade brings the curtain down on his second stint with MI, a franchise with which he won four IPL titles. Having first joined MI in 2015, the 33-year-old had starring roles with both bat and ball during the team’s title-winning campaigns in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020.
After seven seasons with Mumbai, Pandya moved to Gujarat Titans (GT) at a fee of Rs 15 crore in 2022 and led the franchise to the title in its debut season. GT also reached the final in 2023. Pandya returned to MI in 2024, taking over captaincy from stalwart Rohit Sharma but the franchise’s performance nose-dived and it was speculated that the injury-ravaged maverick was unhappy with how things panned out. He struggled to win over fans after taking over leadership and was incessantly booed in the first season after his return.
