The clubs in Indian Premier League (IPL) have until November 15 to complete the list of retained and released players in the IPL 2026 mini-auction that will be done later in the year.
Speculations that the Delhi Capitals (DC) and the Rajasthan Royals (RR) were considering selling KL Rahul and Sanju Samson to other teams before the mini-auction had been made a few weeks ago. Fans started speculating about the team that would sign the two wicketkeeper-batters who can also become captains.
However, recent sources indicate that Rahul will be retained by the Capitals. Sanju Samson, on the other hand, reportedly told the Royals that he wanted to face new challenges after spending 11 seasons with the inaugural champs in two different stints.
According to speculations, Samson’s next destination may be the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), with the five-time winners offering Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran to the Royals in exchange.
Over the years, the IPL has seen some pretty interesting player trades. Let’s take a look at the largest IPL swap transactions below.
Here’s the list IPL player trade and swap deals in the tournament’s history:
| Year | Player | From | To | Notes |
| 2009 | Zaheer Khan | RCB | MI | Swap deal with Robin Uthappa |
| 2009 | Ashish Nehra | DD | MI | Swap deal with Shikhar Dhawan |
| 2012 | Dinesh Karthik | KXIP | MI | Sum undisclosed; Swap deal with R Sathish |
| 2012 | Pragyan Ojha | Chargers | MI | Undisclosed sum |
| 2012 | Kevin Pietersen | Chargers | DD | |
| 2013 | Ashish Nehra | PWI | DD | Swap deal with Ross Taylor |
| 2015 | Parthiv Patel | RCB | MI | Swap deal with Manvinder Bisla |
| 2016 | KL Rahul | SRH | RCB | |
| 2019 | Quinton de Kock | RCB | MI | Rs 2.8 crore |
| 2019 | Marcus Stoinis | KXIP | RCB | Rs 6.2 crore; Swap deal with Mandeep Singh |
| 2019 | Shikhar Dhawan | SRH | Capitals | Rs 5.2 crore; Swap deal with Abhishek Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Vijay Shankar |
| 2020 | R Ashwin | KXIP | Capitals | Rs 7.6 crore; Swap deal with J Suchith |
| 2020 | Trent Boult | Capitals | MI | Undisclosed Sum |
| 2020 | Ajinkya Rahane | RR | Capitals | Rs 5.25 crore; Swap deal with Mayank Markande, Rahul Tewatia |
| 2021 | Harshal Patel | Capitals | RCB | |
| 2022 | Lockie Ferguson | GT | KKR | Rs 10 crore |
| 2022 | Shardul Thakur | Capitals | KKR | Rs 10.75 crore |
| 2024 | Avesh Khan | LSG | RR | Rs 10 crore; Swap deal with Devdutt Padikkal |
| 2024 | Hardik Pandya | GT | MI | Rs 15 crore |
| 2024 | Cameron Green | MI | RCB | Rs 17.5 crore |
