CSK trade Khaleel and Ellis to SRH for Livingstone and Edwards

Chennai Super Kings have traded Khaleel Ahmed and Nathan Ellis to Sunrisers Hyderabad in exchange for Liam Livingstone and Jack Edwards.

Livingstone, who was picked by SRH for INR 13 crore at the last IPL auction, will join CSK at a reduced fee of INR 6 crore. Edwards, an emerging seam-bowling allrounder from Australia, will join CSK at his existing fee of INR 3 crore.

SRH acquired Khaleel for INR 4.8 crore and Ellis for INR 2 crore.

At the 2026 auction, SRH had outbid CSK to snap up Edwards, but he ended up missing the entire season with a foot injury. At the time of the previous auction, Edwards was the only uncapped overseas player to be signed up.

More recently this year, Edwards made his ODI and T20I debuts for Australia and in his second ODI, against South Africa in Johannesburg, he bagged a five-for.

After playing for Sunrisers Leeds, Sunrisers Hyderabad's sister franchise in the Hundred, earlier this year, Ellis will turn out for SRH in the upcoming IPL season. He was sidelined from the previous IPL season with injury and will exit CSK with just one game for them across two seasons.

Khaleel is also a familiar face at SRH, having played for them between 2018 and 2021. He played five matches for CSK in IPL 2026 before being ruled out of the season with a quadriceps injury. At SRH, Khaleel will combine with T Natarajan, another left-arm seamer whom they acquired via trade, from Delhi Capitals.

In the absence of Khaleel, CSK will look up to Mukesh Choudhary, another powerplay specialist who can swing the new ball, and Gurjapneet Singh, who is on the India A radar now, to step up as their primary left-arm quicks.

Livingstone brings a wealth of T20 experience to CSK: he has scored 8595 runs in 370 games to go with 171 wickets with his assortment of offspin and legspin. The England allrounder was recently in action in the inaugural European T20 Premier League (ETPL), where he scored 219 runs in ten innings at a strike rate of 128.82 for Glasgow Cosmic.

As for Edwards, apart from being a key player for Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League, he has been on multiple tours of India with the Australia A side. Edwards has also played for Washington Freedom, under Ricky Ponting, in the MLC in the USA.

The deadline for teams to finalise their retention list and released players ahead of the IPL 2027 auction has been pushed by two days to November 17. It was initially scheduled for November 15, the same day as the fifth ODI between India and New Zealand. The day-long mini-auction itself is set for December 16 in Goa.