The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has officially announced that the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction for the upcoming 2026 season will be taking place overseas. The event will be hosted in Abu Dhabi and the confirmation came shortly after all the ten franchises submitted their final lists of retained players.
The whole event will be concluded in a single day and it will be held on December 16, 2025. The teams now collectively have a purse of INR 237.55 crore to secure 77 players for the available slot. In the last auction, Saudi Arabia created headlines with record-breaking buys which involved players like Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer and Venkatesh Iyer.
The retention window was closed on November 15 where all the teams in total retained 173 players out of which 49 were overseas. Punjab Kings retained highest number of players – 21. Followed by Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans who retained 20 each. Now after the retentions are over, Kolkata Knight Riders walks in with the highest amount of purse which is – INR 64.30 crore as the franchise released major players like Andre Russell and Venkatesh Iyer.
Chennai Super Kings also have the second-highest purse INR 43.4 crore and still have nine spots left to fill. CSK has already traded Ravindra Jadeja and Sam Curran and brought in Sanju Samson from Rajasthan Royals. Samson has moved to CSK for INR 18 crore while Jadeja and Curran INR 18 crore and INR 2.4 crore.
