Khaleel Ahmed joins Sunrisers Hyderabad as Chennai Super Kings trade in Liam Livingstone

Chennai Super Kings have sent Khaleel Ahmed and Nathan Ellis to Sunrisers Hyderabad in a four-player trade that brings Liam Livingstone and Jack Edwards to Chennai

The BCCI confirmed the agreement on Thursday, 5 November, making it the third completed deal of a trade window that has now moved eight players between franchises ahead of the IPL 2027 mini-auction.

Livingstone joins Chennai on a revised fee of INR 6 crore, under half the INR 13 crore Hyderabad had paid for him, while Edwards keeps his INR 3 crore contract. Khaleel goes the other way at INR 4.8 crore and Ellis at INR 2 crore.

Those figures are the players' salary-cap values and do not include any fee the two franchises settled between themselves. Two former Chennai batters have already questioned the trade.

A swap of bowling for batting

Both players leaving Chennai are fast bowlers. Khaleel played five matches last season before a quadriceps injury ended his campaign, and Ellis missed the season entirely with a hamstring problem, with Spencer Johnson signed as his replacement.

The two arriving are a batter and an all-rounder. Edwards, a 26-year-old Australian, did not play for Hyderabad last season.

The move takes Khaleel back to a dressing room he knows. He was on Hyderabad's books from 2018 to 2021 before moving on, and returns as the most experienced of the four players involved.

Livingstone arrives at less than half his price

Livingstone has 8,595 runs and 171 wickets in 370 T20 matches, a record that made him one of the more expensive buys of recent auctions without translating into a settled place at either franchise.

He won the 2025 title with Royal Challengers Bengaluru, scoring 112 runs in 10 matches, and was released after it. Hyderabad then paid INR 13 crore for him and played him twice, for 15 runs.

He is also out of the England side at present, which leaves the Chennai season as his clearest route back to regular cricket.

Chennai point to their cricket management

Chief executive Kasi Viswanathan said the decision came from inside the camp rather than from the boardroom. "The cricket management takes all decisions at CSK. We have the think tank of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Zaheer Khan and MS Dhoni," he told The Times of India.

The franchise has not commented publicly on the criticism that followed, and has yet to name the squad it intends to retain.

Former batters question the logic

Subramaniam Badrinath was the blunter of the two. "Is it a good trade if you trade two players who play in the XI for two who don't play at all in the XI?" he asked on his YouTube channel, calling the deal "a super trade for SRH".

Sadagoppan Ramesh, speaking to NDTV Sports, framed it as a gamble on a player others had moved on from. "CSK is buying a player that other teams haven't trusted," he said, adding that "the only hope is Dhoni's influence transforming Livingstone".

Both men argued that releasing Khaleel and Ellis cost Chennai two bowlers capable of operating at the death.

The window before the mini-auction

The Chennai deal follows two earlier trades. Rishabh Pant moved from Lucknow Super Giants to Delhi Capitals at INR 15 crore with Kuldeep Yadav going the other way at INR 13.5 crore, and T Natarajan joined Hyderabad from Delhi at INR 5 crore in exchange for Zeeshan Ansari.

A further move involving Hardik Pandya and Arshdeep Singh has been widely reported but is not yet official.

Franchises must submit their lists of retained and released players by 17 November, a date the BCCI pushed back from 15 November, with the mini-auction to follow in Goa on 16 December.

Chennai have nine days left to settle a squad whose bowling attack now looks materially different.