Prashant Veer, Aaqib Nabi and Karthik Sharma were among the most expensive players.Image Credit source: PTI

The essence of this tournament is hidden in the trophy of IPL, the world's biggest T20 league. The most prestigious trophy of the T20 league across the world has it written in Sanskrit - 'Yatra Pratibha Avasar Prapnotihi'. In Hindi it means - 'Where talent gets opportunity". Hundreds of youngsters have got the opportunity to leave their mark in IPL for the last 18 consecutive seasons. But this was seen to be best realized in the player auction held for the 19th season. Yes, in the IPL 2026 auction, a lot of money was showered on unknown Indian players aged 19-20 years among the famous players, which is the highest in the 19-year history of IPL auction.

in Abu Dhabi on 16 December IPL 2026 auction Most eyes were on Australian all-rounder Cameron Green. It was already believed that a bid of at least Rs 25 crore could be made for him, which only Kolkata Knight Riders or Chennai Super Kings could do. The same thing happened and Kolkata bought Green for Rs 25.20 crore. Chennai lost this game but after this it did something amazing which surprised everyone and became history.

Prashant and Karthik are the richest

While Green and Matisha Patirana (18 crores) were being discussed, the round of indiscriminate bidding on 20 year old unknown player Prashant Veer surprised everyone. Ultimately, this spin all-rounder from Uttar Pradesh was bought by Chennai for an amount of Rs 14.20 crore. This became a new record for the highest amount for any uncapped player in IPL history. Earlier this record was in the name of Avesh Khan (10 crores).

But this trend did not stop here and then CSK created a stir by buying 19 year old Rajasthan wicketkeeper-batsman Karthik Sharma for Rs 14.20 crore. But not only these two, but Jammu and Kashmir's fast bowling all-rounder Aaqib Nabi, who is continuously doing wonders in domestic cricket, also got a lot of money and Delhi Capitals bought him for Rs 8.40 crore. Apart from these, Madhya Pradesh's left arm pacer Mangesh Yadav was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for Rs 5.20 crore.

9 untapped millionaires, spend so much for the first time

Overall, this time indiscriminate money was showered on uncapped players and 9 uncapped Indian players became millionaires for the first time in the IPL auction. Apart from these 4 players, these 5 players also became millionaires - Tejashwi Singh (3 crore-KKR), Mukul Chaudhary (2.60 crore-LSG), Akshat Raghuvanshi (2.20 crore-LSG), Naman Tiwari (1 crore-LSG) and Salil Arora (1.50 crore-SRH).

That means, a total of Rs 52.30 crore was spent this time on only 9 uncapped players. For the first time in the history of IPL, so much money has been spent on uncapped Indian players in an auction. The actual amount is even higher because most of the uncapped players were sold at a base price of Rs 30 lakh, while some were sold for around Rs 50 lakh to Rs 90 lakh. In such a situation, this IPL auction remained in the names of truly uncapped players only.