The Indian Premier League is going to have its 2026 session with a mini-auction set for 16 December, which is supposed to be held at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. This is the third consecutive year for the match to be held outside India. After Dubai and Jeddah, the tournament will be hosted in Abu Dhabi.
The franchises had already locked in their decisions by the retention deadline of 15 December. Teams retained a total of 173 players, which includes 49 overseas stars. There are 77 slots up for the auction. The combined purse available for the teams to spend is ₹237.55 crore.
Indian Premier League Auction 2026 Retained Players-
| Team | Retained Players (Indian) | Overseas Retained | Traded-In Players |
| CSK | Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), MS Dhoni (wk), Ayush Mhatre, Urvil Patel, Shivam Dube, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Khaleel Ahmed, Anshul Kamboj, Gurjapneet Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Mukesh Choudhary | Dewald Brevis, Jamie Overton, Noor Ahmad, Nathan Ellis | Sanju Samson (from RR) |
| DC | Abhishek Porel (wk), Ajay Mandal, Ashutosh Sharma, Axar Patel, Karun Nair, Kuldeep Yadav, Madhav Tiwari, Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, T. Natarajan, Tripurana Vijay, Mukesh Kumar | Dushmantha Chameera, Mitchell Starc, Tristan Stubbs | — |
| GT | Anuj Rawat (wk), Gurnoor Singh Brar, Ishant Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Manav Suthar, Mohammad Siraj, Mohd Arshad Khan, Nishant Sindhu, Prasidh Krishna, R Sai Kishore, Rahul Tewatia, Sai Sudharsan, Shahrukh Khan, Washington Sundar | Glenn Phillips, Jos Buttler, Kagiso Rabada, Rashid Khan | — |
| KKR | Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Umran Malik, Vaibhav Arora | Sunil Narine, Rovman Powell | — |
| LSG | Abdul Samad, Akash Singh, Arshin Kulkarni, Avesh Khan, Ayush Badoni, Digvesh Rathi, Himmat Singh, Manimaran Siddharth, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan, Prince Yadav, Shahbaz Ahmed | Aiden Markram, Matthew Breetzke, Mitchell Marsh, Nicholas Pooran | — |
| MI | Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Jasprit Bumrah, Deepak Chahar, Naman Dhir, Ashwani Kumar | Will Jacks, Allah Ghazanfar, Corbin Bosch, Mitchell Santner, Sherfane Rutherford, Trent Boult | Ryan Rickelton (wk) |
| PBKS | Arshdeep Singh, Harnoor Pannu, Harpreet Brar, Musheer Khan, Nehal Wadhera, Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Priyansh Arya, Pyla Avinash, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Suryansh Shedge, Vishnu Vinod (wk), Vyshak Vijaykumar, Yash Thakur | Azmatullah Omarzai, Lockie Ferguson, Marco Jansen, Marcus Stoinis, Mitch Owen, Xavier Bartlett | — |
| RR | Full list not fully disclosed publicly; retained 16 Indian players, including Yashasvi Jaiswal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Navdeep Saini, Sandeep Sharma | Overseas retained: Jos Buttler (traded OUT to GT), Rovman Powell (to KKR), others not fully confirmed | — |
| RCB | Virat Kohli, Rajat Patidar, Devdutt Padikkal, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Krunal Pandya, Suyash Sharma, Swapnil Singh, Yash Dayal, Abhinandan Singh, Rasikh Dar | Phil Salt (wk), Tim David, Josh Hazlewood, Nuwan Thushara, Jacob Bethell, Romario Shepherd | — |
| SRH | Abhishek Sharma, Aniket Verma, Harshal Patel, Ishan Kishan (wk), Jaydev Unadkat, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Smaran Ravichandran, Zeeshan Ansari | Brydon Carse, Eshan Malinga, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Kamindu Mendis, Pat Cummins (c), Travis Head | — |
Some teams enter into the auction with significant power in their budgets, and in this Kolkata Knight Riders top the chart with around ₹64.3 crore, while Chennai Super Kings claim the second position with ₹43.4 crore. On the other hand, teams like Mumbai Indians enter with a much tighter purse, with ₹2.75 crore.
Remaining Purses of teams in Indian Premier League Auction 2026-
| Team | Remaining Purse (₹ Cr) | Remaining Slots | Overseas Slots Remaining |
| KKR | 64.3 | 13 | 6 |
| CSK | 43.4 | 9 | 4 |
| SRH | 25.5 | 10 | 2 |
| DC | 21.8 | 8 | 5 |
| LSG | 22.95 | 6 | 4 |
| RCB | 16.4 | 8 | 2 |
| RR | 16.05 | 9 | 1 |
| GT | 12.9 | 5 | 4 |
| PBKS | 11.5 | 4 | 2 |
| MI | 2.75 | 5 | 1 |
Conclusion-
Since a mega auction has already taken place in 2025, the franchises definitely won’t be rebuilding all this from scratch. But that does not mean this auction is just a mere one, but they could use this event to fine-tune their squads, fill the gaps and strategically take players to maintain the balance in the team and optimise their talent fully.
FAQs
Will Maxwell play IPL in 2026?
No, Maxwell has opted out of the 2026 IPL auction.
How many players are in the IPL auction in 2026?
A total of 1,355 players have registered for the 2026 IPL auction.
Is Arjun Tendulkar unsold in IPL 2025?
No, he has been traded from Mumbai Indians to Lucknow Super Giants.
Who are the retained players in Tata IPL 2026?
A total of 173 players, including 49 overseas players have been retained in IPL 2026.
