DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates – The 2026 In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) auc­tion de­liv­ered seis­mic shocks and strate­gic steals, head­lined by Kolkata Knight Rid­ers (KKR) mak­ing Aus­tralia’s Cameron Green the most ex­pen­sive over­seas play­er of all time, while the West In­dies’ sea­soned stars found new homes af­ter in­tense bid­ding wars.

In a stun­ning open­ing sal­vo, a fierce three-way tus­sle for Aus­tralian all-rounder Cameron Green con­clud­ed with the Kolkata Knight Rid­ers se­cur­ing his ser­vices for a stag­ger­ing 25.2 Crore (ap­prox. $3.02 mil­lion USD).

This mon­u­men­tal bid, con­test­ed fierce­ly by Ra­jasthan Roy­als and Chen­nai Su­per Kings, eclipses the pre­vi­ous over­seas record set by KKR them­selves for Mitchell Starc (24.75 Cr in 2024).

How­ev­er, Green’s fee still falls short of the over­all IPL auc­tion record, set last year by In­dia’s Rishabh Pant (27 Cr to Luc­know Su­per Gi­ants).

While the Green saga cap­tured head­lines, the bat­tle for West In­di­an tal­ent pro­vid­ed the day’s most grip­ping sub­plot. In a dra­mat­ic tug-of-war, the Gu­jarat Ti­tans emerged vic­to­ri­ous over the Chen­nai Su­per Kings to claim tow­er­ing all-rounder Ja­son Hold­er for 7 Crore (ap­prox. $840,000 USD).

Hold­er, an IPL vet­er­an with stints at five fran­chis­es, in­clud­ing CSK, brings in­valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence, seam bowl­ing, and ex­plo­sive low­er-or­der hit­ting to the Ti­tans’ camp for their 2026 cam­paign.

CSK, though miss­ing out on Hold­er, swift­ly moved to bol­ster their spin de­part­ment with a qui­et but as­tute pur­chase. They se­cured the ser­vices of West In­dies’ left-arm spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein for his base price of ₹2 Crore (ap­prox. $240,000 USD) in an un­con­test­ed deal.

Ho­sein’s eco­nom­i­cal bowl­ing and handy low­er-or­der con­tri­bu­tions are seen as a per­fect fit for the spin-friend­ly con­di­tions at Chep­auk.

Hold­er and Ho­sein will join sev­er­al oth­er West In­di­an play­ers in the 2026 IPL. Those play­ers in­clude Ro­mario Shep­herd (Roy­al Chal­lengers Ben­galu­ru), Sher­fane Ruther­ford (Mum­bai In­di­ans), Rov­man Pow­ell and Sunil Nar­ine (Kolkata Knight Rid­ers), Shim­ron Het­my­er (Ra­jasthan Roy­als), and Nicholas Pooran (Luc­know Su­per Gi­ants).

CMC