IPL Auction: Prithvi Shaw, Sarfaraz Khan's IPL exile ends; Cameron Green makes history, uncapped Indians rise and shine

IPL Auction LIVE: If there’s one franchise that loves a headline auction splash, it’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru. They’re the only team whose costliest buy of the season has also been the most expensive player of the entire auction on three separate occasions. In 2009, RCB went all out for Kevin Pietersen, matching the top price of that auction. In 2014, they broke the record books for Yuvraj Singh at ₹14 crore, then in 2016 they did it again with Shane Watson for ₹9.5 crore, the biggest cheque of that sale. Across different eras, different captains and different auction rules, one pattern has stayed constant: when RCB like someone, they don’t just outbid the room – they often set the market for that year.

IPL Auction LIVE: Just hours before the mini auction, Venkatesh Iyer and Deepak Hooda have shown all ten franchises what they can do if they are on fire on a given day. Playing for Madhya Pradesh against Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the left-handed batter Iyer smashed 70 runs off 43 balls. The all-rounder who was released by KKR before the auction has set his base price at INR 2 crore and is one of the biggest draws in the auction.

Meanwhile, Deepak Hooda also set the stage on fire playing for Rajasthan against Mumbai in SMAT. The right-hander hit a whirlwind 51 runs with the help of 4 fours and 3 sixes to help Rajasthan post 216 runs on the board. Hooda was released by CSK, and it remains to be seen whether he finds a franchise in the auction, set to begin at 2:30 PM IST in Abu Dhabi.

IPL Auction LIVE: Long before he was drawing up plans in the Australian dressing room, Andrew McDonald was part of one of Delhi’s more curious auction splashes. At the 2009 auction, Delhi Daredevils made the Australian all-rounder their most expensive buy, paying around ₹3.67 crore to bring him in for IPL 2009. At the time, McDonald was seen as a handy, under-the-radar option – a tall seamer who could bowl decent overs and chip in with runs down the order – rather than a headline overseas superstar. His IPL stint was brief and low-key, and he never became a central figure in Delhi’s XI. But in hindsight, that line on the auction sheet reads very differently: the franchise once invested its top cheque of the season in a player who would go on to become the head coach of the Australian men’s team, taking charge of one of the most powerful dressing rooms in world cricket.

IPL Auction LIVE: Delhi’s auction story has always been a little louder than most, and their list of costliest buys across seasons proves it. It starts relatively modestly with Gautam Gambhir for ₹2.9 crore in 2008, before the franchise begins to swing harder: Irfan Pathan ( ₹8.74 crore in 2011), Mahela Jayawardene ( ₹11.76 crore in 2012) and Dinesh Karthik ( ₹12.5 crore in 2014) mark the first big spending wave. Then comes the headline act – Yuvraj Singh for ₹16 crore in 2015, an all-time record at that point and still one of the most talked-about bids in IPL history.

The second phase is just as chaotic: Pawan Negi at ₹8.5 crore in 2016 as the costliest Indian, Glenn Maxwell ( ₹9 crore in 2018), and more recently Kumar Kushagra for ₹7.2 crore in 2024, a jaw-dropping number for an uncapped keeper-batter. Now, the latest spike is KL Rahul at ₹14 crore in 2025, signalling another marquee reset. You can almost track Delhi’s changing philosophies – from short-term star bursts to youth gambles – simply by following who tops their auction sheet each year.

IPL Auction LIVE: Before he was captain and a marquee India batter, Shreyas Iyer arrived in the IPL with a very specific tag: Delhi’s record uncapped gamble. At the 2015 auction, Delhi Daredevils paid ₹2.6 crore for a then 20-year-old Iyer, making him the highest-paid uncapped player of that season. It looked like a bold, future-facing call at the time – and he repaid it immediately. Batting at the top of the order, Iyer piled up 439 runs in his debut IPL season, mixing clean hitting with temperament and ending as one of the stories of the tournament. He was named the Emerging Player of the Season, instantly validating Delhi’s decision to go big on him when he was still a domestic name rather than a national star.

IPL Auction LIVE: Delhi’s wildest auction swing is still the Yuvraj Singh deal in 2015. At that year’s auction, Delhi Daredevils went all in and paid a staggering ₹16 crore for Yuvraj, at the time the highest price ever paid for any player in IPL auction history, even eclipsing his own ₹14 crore RCB deal from 2014. It was the ultimate superstar punt on a World Cup winner and one of the loudest headlines the IPL table has produced. But the sequel was even more dramatic: before the very next auction in 2016, Delhi released Yuvraj – along with another big-money signing, Angelo Mathews ( ₹7.5 crore) – effectively tearing up back-to-back marquee investments and hitting reset on their auction strategy just 12 months after breaking the record.

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.

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.

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.

IPL Auction LIVE: One of the strangest IPL auction moments belongs to CSK — and it literally came down to a secret bid. At the 2012 IPL auction (Feb 4, Bengaluru), Ravindra Jadeja’s bidding hit the ceiling: both Chennai Super Kings and Deccan Chargers reached the maximum available purse of $2 million, so the auction couldn’t go any higher in the open room. That’s when the rarely used tie-breaker kicked in: the two teams were asked to submit undisclosed “sealed” bids (offstage), and CSK won the tie to secure Jadeja at $2m. Fun extra detail: the tie-breaker was designed so the excess (beyond the public cap) wouldn’t go to the player — it was meant to protect the purse system while keeping it fair.

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.

And in 2025, the bracket roared again with 11 crorepatis, headlined by Naman Dhir ( ₹5.25 cr), Anshul Kamboj ( ₹3.4 cr), Suyash Sharma ( ₹2.6 cr), Vaibhav Arora, Lomror, Yash Thakur and more.

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.

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.

IPL Auction LIVE: The full 369-player shortlist has finally thrown up a fascinating trend: wicketkeepers are the most expensive role on average in this year’s auction. When you break the pool down by roles and compute the mean base price, keepers top the chart at INR 74.2 lakh, driven by a high-value capped group that includes Bairstow, Inglis, De Kock and Duckett.

Fast bowlers sit just behind at INR 72.2 lakh, which isn’t surprising in a league where pace is currency. Names like Nortje, Pathirana, Coetzee, Mustafizur and Jamieson ensure that the fast-bowling sets start at a higher baseline than almost every other skill category.

Batters (INR 57.2 lakh) and all-rounders (INR 56.9 lakh) form the mid-pack — a reflection of how the capped stars lift the top end, while a massive uncapped pool at INR 30 lakh pulls the average back down.

The cheapest group on average? Spinners at INR 53.1 lakh. Even though Bishnoi, Mujeeb and Theekshana headline the spin sets, the sheer volume of INR 30 lakh uncapped spinners keeps the mean price the lowest among all roles.

It’s a reminder that teams still pay a premium for keepers and fast bowlers, while the depth in spin and all-round options keeps those categories more budget-friendly.

If you zoom out from names and roles, the IPL 2026 mini-auction is the most “Indian-heavy” pool of this cycle. In 2024, the auction list had 333 players, of whom 214 were Indian – about 64.3 per cent of the pool. The 2025 mega auction stayed in the same band, with 366 Indians out of 574 registrations – roughly 63.8 per cent.

This year, that balance shifts decisively. The updated 2026 list features 359 players, including 244 Indians and 115 overseas/associate names. That pushes India’s share up to 68.2 per cent, the highest proportion in the last three auctions. In simple terms, almost seven out of every ten players walking into Abu Dhabi are Indian. The overseas group still dominates the top base-price bands, but the depth, bench options and most of the uncapped gamble picks are now coming from a bigger domestic base than ever before.

IPL Auction LIVE: One look at the 2026 shortlist and the very top band tells its own story. This time, 40 players have listed themselves at INR 2 crore, which is just over 11 per cent of the entire 359-player pool. Two seasons ago, in the 2024 auction, that bracket had 23 names out of 333 – roughly 6.9 per cent. In simple maths, the top shelf has grown by almost 75 per cent in one auction cycle, even though the total pool size hasn’t ballooned in the same way.

The split inside that band is even more extreme. Out of those 40 names, 38 are overseas, and only two are Indian (Venkatesh Iyer and Ravi Bishnoi). That means about one in three overseas players – 33 per cent – has walked in at the maximum base price, while for Indians it’s well under 1 per cent (just 2 out of 244).

IPL Auction LIVE: The 359-player shortlist is effectively running two parallel economies. Indians dominate the volume: 244 out of 359 players – about 68 per cent – are Indian, with the remaining 115 (32%) coming from overseas or Associate teams. Yet almost all of that Indian presence is stacked at the bottom of the ladder. A massive 234 players – around 65% of the entire pool – have listed at the minimum INR 30 lakh base, and that band is overwhelmingly uncapped Indian-heavy.

The picture flips at the top. The INR 2 crore bracket has just 40 names (11 per cent of the pool), but 38 of them are overseas, and only two are Indian – Venkatesh Iyer and Ravi Bishnoi. That means 95 per cent of the top band is foreign, and roughly one in three overseas players (about 33 per cent) has entered at the maximum base price. Across all bands from INR 75 lakh upwards, there are 114 capped players in total (around 32 per cent of the pool), but only 16 of those are Indians – barely 4.5 per cent of the entire shortlist.

So on auction day, teams aren’t just juggling roles. They’re stitching together a squad from one Indian-heavy bargain basement and a much smaller, overseas-dominated luxury shelf, with very little capped Indian experience bridging the gap.

IPL Auction LIVE: For all the noise about capped Indian experience, the shortlist quietly shows how small that group really is. Out of 359 players, there are only 16 capped Indians in the entire pool – and every single one of them has been listed at INR 75 lakh or higher. Just two have gone to the maximum INR 2 crore bracket, one more sits at INR 1.5 crore, another two at INR 1 crore, and the remaining 11 are clustered at INR 75 lakh. No capped Indian has taken the ego hit of dropping into the INR 50 lakh or INR 30 lakh floor.

t underlines why capped Indian slots feel so expensive every year: the supply is tiny, and nobody in that category is willing to sell themselves as a bargain. Teams looking for tested Indian options essentially have a pool of sixteen names to work with, spread across only three meaningful price bands. Once a couple of bidding wars push the top-tier players beyond comfort, the entire market for capped Indians can tilt in a single hour.

IPL Auction LIVE: Forget the INR 2 crore fireworks and the INR 30 lakh flood for a moment – the most interesting part of the IPL 2026 shortlist sits quietly in the middle. There are 74 players listed between INR 75 lakh and INR 1.5 crore, a band dominated by fast bowlers (28) and all-rounders (23), with only single-digit numbers for batters, keepers and spinners. This is the plug-and-play zone where teams usually fix one big problem without blowing up the purse.

What really stands out is who lives here. A massive 60 of those 74 names are overseas players, including 22 seam all-rounders, 21 quicks and 8 wicketkeeper-batters. Only 14 Indians have priced themselves in this corridor, and just one Indian all-rounder and one Indian keeper appear in the entire mid-range. In other words, if franchises are looking for solid but not superstar overseas options – especially pace and multi-skill – this is the band they’ll keep returning to all evening. The INR 75L–INR 1.5Cr cluster might not produce the costliest buys, but it’s almost certainly where a few playoff-deciding pieces will be quietly picked up.

IPL Auction LIVE: Moving away from names and reputations, the IPL 2026 mini-auction is essentially an all-rounder and fast-bowler market. Out of 359 players, a massive 139 are listed as all-rounders and another 92 as fast bowlers – well over half the field is trying to sell either pace or multi-skill impact. Specialist roles look much thinner by comparison: there are only 47 pure batters, 43 spinners and 38 wicketkeepers in the entire shortlist.

That imbalance has consequences. Teams hunting an Indian or overseas all-rounder will have a wide catalogue to scroll through, which usually means ruthless price discovery and some big names slipping into value territory. But if a franchise realises late that it still needs a specialist keeper, a left-field spinner or a particular kind of top-order batter, the pool is suddenly much shallower. The volume map says it clearly: this auction is built to reward flexible players who bowl pace and bat a bit – and to punish any side that misreads how few genuine specialists are actually available.

IPL Auction LIVE: The base-price ladder splits the auction room cleanly into two worlds. From INR 75 lakh upwards, every single player is capped – all 40 at INR 2 crore, 9 at INR 1.5 crore, 4 at INR 1.25 crore, 17 at INR 1 crore and 44 at INR 75 lakh come with international or IPL experience. Uncapped names don’t touch these bands at all, signalling that only proven players were confident enough to test the top of the market.

Drop below that, and the picture flips. The INR 50 lakh (4 players) and INR 40 lakh (7 players) tiers are entirely uncapped, while the base of the pyramid – INR 30 lakh – is a 234-player flood, made up of 233 uncapped cricketers and just one Associate name, Malaysia’s Virandeep Singh. In simple terms, capped players have occupied every rung of the premium ladder, and almost the entire risk is being carried by uncapped hopefuls clustered at the minimum base. It’s a brutally honest self-assessment of where each group thinks it stands in the IPL economy.

IPL Auction LIVE: Look beyond the 359-player headline, and the role-wise India vs overseas split tells its own story. All-rounders dominate the field with 139 names, including 99 Indians, 39 overseas players and one Associate (Malaysia’s Virandeep Singh). Fast bowling is the next-biggest market at 92 players, but here the balance tilts – only 57 are Indian, with 35 overseas quicks.

Batting and spin are still largely Indian-led skills. There are 35 Indian batters to just 12 overseas, and 32 Indian spinners to 11 overseas, while the wicketkeeper pool is almost perfectly split at 21 Indian vs 17 overseas options. In simple terms: if teams want pace and multi-skill impact, they are still looking heavily abroad; if they want specialist batting, spin or keeping depth, the auction room is stacked with Indian options.

IPL Auction LIVE: Let us get the shortlist down to just numbers, and the IPL 2026 auction becomes a brutal pyramid. Only 40 players sit at the rooftop INR 2 crore bracket, with another 9 at INR 1.5 crore and 4 at INR 1.25 crore – just 53 names in total in what you’d call the luxury zone. Below them, a slim middle shelf of 17 players at INR 1 crore and 44 at INR 75 lakh forms the real “solid but not superstar” band that franchises often lean on to plug gaps without torching the purse.

But the real story is the base. An absurd 234 out of 359 players – nearly two-thirds of the entire pool – have listed themselves at INR 30 lakh, with only 4 at INR 50 lakh and 7 at INR 40 lakh breaking that monotony. This is the true auction floodplain: a massive, low-base cluster where uncapped Indians and depth picks live, and where championship benches are usually built. The graph is clear – a tiny elite at the top, a thin, nervous middle, and a giant INR 30 lakh crowd hoping one paddle raise changes their life.

IPL Auction LIVE: One quick look at the DOBs shows how tilted this auction is towards youth. Out of 359 players, 53 are U21 – born in 2004 or later – and 109 fall into the U23 bracket (born 2002 onwards. That’s almost one in three players aged 23 or younger.

There’s experience too. 84 players were born in 1995 or earlier, forming the 30-plus group, while the biggest chunk sits in between: 166 players born between 1996 and 2001, effectively the 24–29 band most teams see as T20 prime.

At the extremes, the list stretches from 39-year-old Jalaj Saxena, the oldest player in the pool, to a pack of 18-year-olds born in 2007 – including Wahidullah Zadran, Sahil Parakh, RS Ambrish, Satvik Deswal and Bayanda Majola. The mini-auction room will genuinely have four different cricketing generations sitting together.

Look beyond the hype around overseas names, and the IPL 2026 mini-auction turns into a serious domestic map. The updated register shows Delhi (DDCA) leading the way with 20 players, followed by Mumbai and Maharashtra (MCA + MACA) combining for 25, while Karnataka (KSCA) contribute 14. Just behind them are Madhya Pradesh (MPCA – 13), Rajasthan (RCA – 12), Uttar Pradesh (UPCA – 12) and a strong cluster of Punjab (PCA), Kerala (KCA) and Tamil Nadu (TNCA) with 11 players each.

The middle tier is packed too, with Baroda (BCA) and Hyderabad (HYCA) on 9, and Andhra (ACA), Bengal (CAB), Vidarbha (VCA), J&K (JKCA) and Saurashtra (SCA) all supplying 8 players apiece. Even smaller associations like Goa (GCA) and Uttarakhand (UTCA) still sneak onto the auction sheet.

The pattern is clear: the traditional power centres still dominate volume, but India’s talent pipeline is now genuinely spread across the map – from Delhi and Mumbai down to newer, quieter ecosystems.