Abu Dhabi [UAE], December 16 : The Indian Premier League (IPL) auction was off to a fantastic start with Australian all-rounder Cameron Green being sold to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for Rs 25.20 crores, becoming the third-most expensive player in the league's history and the most expensive overseas player in the competition's history on Tuesday.
Initially, Rajasthan Royals and KKR entered an intense bidding war, with the Royals opting out at around Rs 13 crores, and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), which entered the bidding, pushing the price well above Rs 20 crores. CSK bid Rs 25 crores, and KKR followed it with a 25.20 crores bid and won the war.
Green has scored 521 runs in 21 T20Is matches at an average of 32.56, SR of 160.30, with six fifties and has 12 wickets averaging 23.35. He has scored 1,334 runs in 63 T20S at an average of 33.35, with a SR of 151.07, including a century and seven fifties, and has taken 28 wickets at an average above 34.
The young Aussie all-rounder featured in the 2023 and 2024 IPL seasons with the Mumbai Indians (MI) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), scoring 707 runs in 29 matches at an average of 41.58, with an SR of 153-plus, a century and two fifties and took 16 wickets at an average of above 41.5. But he did not participate in last season's auction due to injury.
Though the winning bid for Cameron Green was for Rs 25.2 crore, Green can only earn Rs 18 crore in the IPL 2026 season.
According to ESPNcricinfo, the IPL introduced a new "maximum fee" rule last year to address franchises' collective concern that some overseas players were registering exclusively at mini-auctions to exploit the supply-demand imbalance. Consequently, the IPL introduced a maximum-fee rule under which overseas players cannot be paid more than INR 18 crore, the highest slab for franchises retaining players ahead of the 2025 mega auction.
If the bid exceeded the INR 18-crore mark, the IPL said the additional money would be utilised by the BCCI for player welfare. "Any overseas player's auction fee at small auction will be lower than the highest retention price [of INR 18 crore] and the highest auction price at the big auction. In case the highest auction price at the big auction is INR 20 crore, then INR 18 crore will be the cap. If the highest auction price at big auction is INR 16 crore, then the cap will be INR 16 crore," as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra batter Prithvi Shaw and Mumbai's Sarfaraz Khan went unsold despite their domestic heroics. Shaw also went unsold last season but has had a decent run in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) this year, scoring 183 runs in seven matches for Maharashtra at an average of 26.14, SR of 160-plus with two fifties.
In the Ranji Trophy, he made 470 runs in five games at an average of 67.14, with a century and three fifties in seven innings and an SR of 92.33. Also, Sarfaraz, who has scored 585 runs in 50 IPL matches for RCB, PBKS and DC with a fifty, looked in sublime touch in SMAT 2025/26, with 329 runs in seven matches at an average of 65.08, strike rate of over 203 with three fifties.
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