IPL 2025 mega auctions finally came to an end on Monday with 182 players getting sold for a whopping combined fee of Rs 639.15 crore. A total of 577 were shortlisted for the 2-day event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and all the ten franchises cracked their brains to build a strong team for the upcoming IPL season. India wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant made headlines as he became the costliest buy in the history of IPL auctions, getting sold to Lucknow Super Giants for Rs 27 crore.

Amid all the big signings, all the fans were left utterly shocked after the defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders did not make even a single bid for batter Nitish Rana.

The left-handed batter, who captained KKR in IPL 2023, was bought by Rajasthan Royals for Rs 4.2 crore after a bidding war with Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bengaluru. After the auctions, Rana took to Instagram and shared a cryptic story, which has got the fans talking.

Wearing a pink t-shirt (which is also a colour of RR’s jersey), Rana posted a picture with a caption, “Royal-ty is pink!”

Pink suits you, @NitishRana_27 pic.twitter.com/ti84GcMmpm

— Rajasthan Royals (@rajasthanroyals) November 25, 2024

The photo was later shared by the Rajasthan Royals on their X (formerly Twitter) handle.

Earlier in October, KKR had retained Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, and Ramandeep Singh and saved them from going under the hammer at the auctions.

Before the retentions were announced, Rana had made a case for himself and reminded KKR that he has scored runs almost ever year.

“I have been serving KKR for the past seven years. It’s not in my hands if I will be retained; it’s up to KKR management to decide. I haven’t received any calls yet. I have scored runs for KKR every year and if they consider me an asset, they will retain me,” Rana had said while speaking to Times Of India.

KKR IPL 2025 Squad: Rinku Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh, Venkatesh Iyer (Rs. 23.75 crore), Quinton de Kock (Rs. 3.60 crore), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (Rs. 2 crore), Anrich Nortje (Rs. 6.50 crore), Angkrish Raghuvanshi (Rs. 3 crore), Vaibhav Arora (Rs. 1.80 crore), Mayank Markande (Rs. 30 lakh), Rovman Powell (Rs. 1.50 crore), Manish Pandey (Rs. 75 lakh), Spencer Johnson (Rs. 2.80 crore), Luvnith Sisodia (Rs. 30 lakh), Ajinkya Rahane (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Anukul Roy (Rs. 40 lakh), Moeen Ali (Rs. 2 crore), Umran Malik (Rs. 75 lakh).