🏏IPL 2026 Mega Auction: The Battle for Cricket’s Brightest Stars🌟

Our cricket loving friends,

The IPL caravan arrives in Abu Dhabi today for the mini-auction that promises fireworks and strategic battles as 10 franchises look to fine-tune their squads ahead of the 2026 season. Starting at 2:30 PM IST, the one-day event at the Etihad Arena will see 369 players - 244 Indians and 115 overseas - vie for 77 available slots.

IPL 2026 auction format

The IPL 2026 auction will be held as a mini auction, giving all 10 franchises an opportunity to rebuild their squads ahead of the new season. Teams enter the auction with a fixed salary purse after deductions for retained players, making purse management a key strategic element. Each franchise must build a squad of 18 to 25 players, with a maximum of eight overseas players allowed, while only four overseas cricketers can feature in the playing XI.

Players are divided into categories such as batters, bowlers, all-rounders and wicketkeeper-batters, and each enters the auction with a predetermined base price. Bidding takes place in open rounds, with the highest bidder securing the player. Unsold players can return in later rounds. No Right to Match (RTM) option will be available in the IPL 2026 mini auction.

What is the new Tie breaker rule introduced this year

In the IPL 2026 mini-auction, a tie between franchises bidding for the same player will trigger a silent, closed-door bidding process. If multiple teams are unable to outbid the "Last Bid" due to salary cap constraints, the auctioneer will ask if any teams wish to match the Last Bid. If one or more franchises do, the auction proceeds to a Tiebreak Bid.

Each franchise involved in the tie will submit a silent written bid indicating the extra amount (in Indian rupees) they are willing to pay to BCCI (not the player) to secure the player’s services. This bid is separate from the Last or Matching Bid and is not deducted from the salary cap. The highest Tiebreak Bid wins, and if there is a tie, the process is repeated until a winner emerges. The winning franchise will sign the player at the agreed-upon League Fee and pay the Tiebreak Bid within 30 days.

When will the IPL 2026 Auction take place?

The IPL 2026 Auction is scheduled to begin on December 16 (Tuesday), 2025.

Where will the IPL 2026 Auction take place?

The IPL 2026 Auction will take place in Abu Dhabi.

What time will the IPL 2026 Auction begin on December 16?

The IPL 2026 Auction will begin at 2:30 PM IST.

Where will the live telecast of the IPL 2026 Auction be available in India?

Fans can catch all the action live on Star Sports Network channels.

IPL Auction LIVE: KKR and CSK have a combined purse of over INR 100 crores, which could well overshadow the BCCI's surprise announcement that's lined up just before the event gets underway.

‘Dad’s Army’ auction that turned into a title win

IPL Auction LIVE: At the 2018 mega auction, Chennai Super Kings built what was comfortably the oldest squad in the league. According to auction breakdowns, they recruited 11 players over the age of 30 and four over 35, giving them an average age of around 34-and-a-half, and earning them the now-famous “Dad’s Army” tag. That approach was vindicated a few months later: their “Dad’s Army” not only reached the final, but also won the IPL 2018, chasing down Sunrisers Hyderabad thanks to Shane Watson’s unbeaten 117 off 57 balls and a season in which Ambati Rayudu piled up 602 runs at a strike rate of nearly 150.

Every CSK auction splash - Season-by-season costliest buys from Dhoni to Noor Ahmad

IPL Auction LIVE: If you want to understand how Chennai Super Kings think at the auction table, just track their most expensive buy each year. It starts with MS Dhoni in 2008 ( ₹6 crore) and jumps to Andrew Flintoff in 2009 ( ₹7.5 crore), then the famous Ravindra Jadeja tiebreaker in 2012 ( ₹9.72 crore). After the suspension years (2016 & 2017), CSK’s comeback phase features Kedar Jadhav in 2018 ( ₹7.8 crore), Piyush Chawla in 2020 ( ₹6.75 crore) and Krishnappa Gowtham in 2021 ( ₹9.25 crore).

The big-money era peaks with Deepak Chahar in 2022 ( ₹14 crore) and Ben Stokes in 2023 ( ₹16.25 crore), followed by Daryl Mitchell in 2024 ( ₹14 crore) and Noor Ahmad in 2025 ( ₹10 crore). From Dhoni’s leadership to spending on Jadeja, Chahar and Noor, CSK’s costliest buys tell the story of a team that keeps reinventing itself without losing its core identity.

Dec 16, 2025 6:50:02 AM IST

MS Dhoni still remains the ‘most expensive’ IPL auction buy – even after Pant’s ₹27 crore deal

IPL Auction LIVE: On paper, Rishabh Pant is the new auction headline: his ₹27 crore signing in the 2025 mega-auction is the biggest price tag in IPL history. But if you look at how much of a team’s purse was spent, MS Dhoni still holds the record. At the inaugural IPL auction in 2008, franchises had a budget of around ₹20 crore. Chennai Super Kings used roughly ₹6 crore of that on Dhoni alone – close to 30 per cent of their entire purse on a single player. Pant’s ₹27 crore, by comparison, is around 22–23 per cent of his team’s current budget. Big-money deals for Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Mitchell Starc and others have come close, but none has beaten Dhoni’s share of the purse.

How ₹20–50L Base-Price Players Became Crorepati Steals (2020–2025)

IPL Auction LIVE: The most unpredictable pocket of every IPL auction isn’t the ₹2 crore marquee tier — it’s the ₹20–50 lakh base-price bracket, where low-entry tickets often turn into high-value victories. And across six seasons, this band has produced some of the sharpest price jumps.

2020 set the tone with a nine-player surge: Varun Chakravarthy, Jaiswal, Bishnoi, Priyam Garg, Virat Singh, Kartik Tyagi, Sheldon Cottrell, Alex Carey and Hetmyer — all leaping from 20–50L bases to crore-plus deals.

2021 tightened the funnel to three names: Gowtham ( ₹9.25 cr), Shahrukh Khan ( ₹5.25 cr) and Chetan Sakariya ( ₹1.2 cr).

2022 delivered the biggest spike: 11 players crossed the ₹1 crore mark from this bracket, including Tim David, Rahul Tewatia, Shivam Mavi, Harpreet Brar, Tilak Varma, Anuj Rawat and others.

2023 was the anomaly — zero players from the 20–50L pool hit the crore-plus mark.

The market bounced back in 2024, where eight players — led by Sameer Rizvi ( ₹8.4 cr), Spencer Johnson, Madushanka, Shahrukh, Mavi, Rachin Ravindra — cleared ₹1 crore.

How merciless is this year’s auction cut?

IPL Auction LIVE: Since 2020, no IPL auction has squeezed the field harder than 2026. A total of 1,390 players registered for the mini-auction, but only 359 have made it to the final list – that’s roughly 25.8%, or just about one in four surviving the trim.

For context, the 2020 mini-auction saw 997 → 332 (33.3 per cent) players make it through. In 2021, it was 1,114 → 292 (26.2 per cent). The 2022 mega auction was far more generous: 1,214 → 590 players (48.6 per cent) entered the room. Even the 2023 mini-auction, with 991 → 405 (40.9 per cent), and the 2024 Dubai mini with 1,166 → 333 (28.6 per cent), offered a significantly wider funnel than what we’re seeing now.

The 2025 mega auction trimmed 1,574 registrations down to 574 names (36.5 per cent), still comfortably above this year’s conversion rate. Put simply: 2026 is the most ruthless shortlisting of the last seven auctions. If you’re among the 359 in Abu Dhabi, you’ve already beaten longer odds than almost any IPL hopeful in recent history – and the hammer hasn’t even started falling yet.

The most expensive buys in every IPL mini-auction

IPL Auction LIVE: As the 2026 mini-auction approaches, it’s worth remembering that these “small” auctions have delivered some of the league’s biggest spending sprees. Starting from 2009, every mini-auction has produced at least one headline-grabbing blockbuster — and together, they tell the full evolution of IPL money power. The early years saw Pietersen and Flintoff hit INR 7.55 crore in 2009, followed by Pollard and Shane Bond reaching INR 4.8 crore in 2010. Things escalated sharply as Jadeja smashed INR 12.8 crore in 2012, Maxwell claimed INR 6.3 crore in 2013, and Yuvraj lit up 2015 with an unprecedented INR 16 crore.

The mid-era belonged to the all-rounders: Shane Watson hit INR 9.5 crore in 2016, Ben Stokes INR 14.5 crore in 2017, and the double eight-crore jackpot of Unadkat and Varun Chakravarthy in 2019. The pandemic cycle pushed the ceiling further — Pat Cummins at INR 15.5 crore in 2020, followed by Chris Morris rewriting history at INR 16.25 crore in 2021. But nothing compares to the modern inflation spike: Sam Curran’s INR 18.5 crore in 2023, and the current all-time mini-auction record holder, Mitchell Starc at INR 24.75 crore in 2024.