The highly anticipated Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 auction is set to ignite the cricketing world on Tuesday, December 16, in Abu Dhabi. Ten franchises will engage in a fierce bidding war to secure their preferred players, aiming to build formidable squads for the upcoming season. With retention day concluded, many star players like Andre Russell, Matheesha Pathirana, Venkatesh Iyer, Devon Conway, David Miller, Rachin Ravindra, and Josh Inglis have been released, opening up exciting opportunities for new team compositions. The auction will commence at 1 PM local time in Abu Dhabi, translating to 2:30 PM IST.
A total of 369 players are slated for auction, whittled down from an initial pool of 1355 names, with recent additions including Abhimanyu Easwaran and Swastik Chikara. Each team’s purse varies significantly, with Kolkata Knight Riders boasting the largest war chest at Rs. 64.30 crore. They are followed by Chennai Super Kings (Rs. 43.40 crore), Sunrisers Hyderabad (Rs. 25.50 crore), and others. The auction has a maximum of 77 available slots to be filled across all teams. Kolkata Knight Riders have the most vacancies with 13 slots, while Punjab Kings have the fewest with four.
This mini-auction will not feature a marquee set, but an accelerated bidding round will commence after the first 70 players are auctioned. Cricket fans can catch all the live action on the Star Sports Network and stream it live on the JioHotstar app and website.