BCCI Announces Salary Cap for Overseas Players in IPL Mini Auctions

A total of 1,355 cricketers from around the world have signed up for the IPL 2026 auction, which will take place on December 16 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. This huge number promises plenty of excitement, surprises, and big bidding battles.

IPL 2026 Mini Auction: Budgets and New Rules for Overseas Players

Each team can have a maximum of 25 players. Looking at the current squads, there are 77 spots still open across the ten IPL teams. Out of these 77 spots, only 31 can be filled by overseas players, and the rest will go to Indian players.

According to a report from ESPN Cricinfo, the IPL 2026 Auction will feature 43 international players along with two Indian players who are all in the top 2 Crore base price category. Cameron Green, an Australian player, and Matheesha Pathirana, a Sri Lankan pace bowler, formerly with Chennai Super Kings, both find themselves among many players to be coveted by the IPL.

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Matheesha Pathirana Bowler

Matheesha Pathirana is a Sri Lankan cricketer who was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka on December 18, 2002.

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Cameron Green Batting Allrounder

Cameron Green is a young prodigy who rose through the ranks through grade cricket and burst onto the domestic scene with a 5-for on debut at the age of just 17.

Cameron Green missed out on IPL 2025 due to being injured before the auction, so his inclusion will bring excitement to a large number of franchises who have need of a strong all-around player in their 2026 season. Furthermore, it has been reported that Matheesha Pathirana will be targeted by multiple franchises after CSK unexpectedly released him prior to this auction.

The previous IPL mini auction saw Mitchell Starc set the current record for the most expensive purchase when KKR paid 24.75 Cr for him in 2024. It is unlikely that any player values will surpass this at the 2026 auction at this point, especially given the fact that KKR were the ones who made this transaction.

KKR goes into the 2026 auction with a big budget of ₹64.30 crore after keeping only 12 players. This year, there is an important change. The BCCI has made a new rule regarding how much overseas players can be paid in mini auctions.

KKR has the most budget for the 2026 auction, with a budget of ₹64.30 crore because they are only retaining 12 players. However, there's a big twist this year. The BCCI created a new rule that impacted the salary cap for all overseas players participating in mini auctions. Under this rule, not one overseas player may receive more than ₹18 crore in total during bidding, even if there is more than one team bidding for the player and/or teams bid up to ₹18 crore.

This rule was established prior to the 2025 mega auction to set the highest limit to retain overseas players at ₹18 crore. If any franchise offers to pay the player over ₹18 crore, that overseas cricketer will only receive ₹18 crores, and any remaining amount above that figure will be placed in the players’ welfare fund under the BCCI.

However, the franchise's full competitive offer amount (in this example, ₹20 crores), will be deducted from their budget. This rule does not have any effect on Indian players. If an Indian cricketer's purchased price is excessive (in this case, ₹20 crore), they will be able to keep the entire excess funds with no deductions.

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