The player auction for the Indian Premier League 2026 season will be held at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.

More than 1300 players had registered for the one-day mini auction, out of which 350 were shortlisted. On Monday, less than 24 hours before the event, 19 more names were added to the auction pool.

Mallika Sagar will be the auctioneer on Tuesday. She had conducted the Women’s Premier League 2026 auction as well last month.

Sagar made history in 2023 when she became the first woman to serve as an auctioneer in the Indian Premier League, conducting the mini-auction in Dubai. She followed that up by officiating the IPL 2025 mega auction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in November 2024.

Her journey in sports auctions began earlier, in 2021, when she became the first female auctioneer of the Pro Kabaddi League. The breakout moment in cricket came with her confident handling of the inaugural Women’s Premier League auctions in 2023.

Born into a business family in Mumbai, Sagar studied art history at Bryn Mawr College in the US. Her introduction to auctioneering, as she has often recalled, came through an unlikely source: reading a book featuring a senior auctioneer as its protagonist.

Her professional career took off in 2001 at Christie’s in New York, one of the world’s leading international auction houses. By the age of 26, she was working in Christie’s international art and luxury business, becoming the first Indian woman auctioneer to hold such a position at the firm. She later continued her work in India with institutions such as Pundole’s Art Gallery in Mumbai.

Published on Dec 16, 2025