The difference between Pant’s previous fee and Kuldeep’s fee will leave LSG with an extra INR 13.50 crore (INR 27 crore minus INR 13.50 crore) in their purse for the next auction, while DC will have INR 1.50 crore deducted from their purse.
Pant has become the second big name after Ravindra Jadeja to take a pay cut as part of a trade in recent times. Ahead of IPL 2026, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) made one of the biggest trades in IPL history when they swapped Jadeja and Sam Curran for Sanju Samson with Rajasthan Royals (RR). In 2022, CSK had retained Jadeja for INR 18 crore but RR signed him after offering a salary of INR 14 crore.
Dear Kuldeep thank you for your service over the last 5 years @DelhiCapitals you have been a core part of our team and you will be sorely missed. Go well – you are a champion player and i am sure you will do extremely well back in your home ground. Rishabh – Kiran and I are both…
— Parth Jindal (@ParthJindal11) June 23, 2026
Both Kuldeep and Pant had a difficult time during IPL 2026.
Pant, who led LSG, scored 312 runs with a best of 68 not out in 13 innings, scoring at a strike rate of 138.05 as his team finished bottom of the table with just four wins from 14 games.
Two days prior to the IPL 2026 final, Pant told LSG that he was going to step down as captain. The development followed LSG team director Tom Moody suggesting immediately after the team’s last match of the season that the franchise was looking to “reset” the leadership in the wake of finishing seventh in 2024 and 2025 and then last in 2026.
DC finished in sixth place in IPL 2026, and Kuldeep, who returned one three-for, had just ten wickets from 11 bowling innings in which he sent down 37 overs. He was expensive too, going at 10.29.
Overall, though, Kuldeep had been an important performer for DC, picking up 72 wickets in 65 games at an economy rate of 8.24 since joining them in 2022.
