Kolkata Knight Riders entered the IPL 2026 auction with the highest purse among all 10 teams and on expected lines, they dominated the proceedings at the start, securing the most expensive buys. They secured Cameron Green and Matheesha Pathirana for Rs 25.2 crore and Rs 18 crore, respectively, as they remained the top two most expensive players of the event. Moreover, Green also became the most expensive overseas player in the history of IPL.
Apart from them, Mustafizur Rahman was one player for whom KKR splurged a massive amount of Rs 9.2 crore, while the rest of their picks were also decent and at base prices of respective players. They got the likes of Finn Allen and Tim Seifert for their base price of Rs 2 crore and Rs 1.5 crore, respectively.
How does KKR's final squad looks for IPL 2026?
KKR will most likely retain Ajinkya Rahane as the captain for the next edition of IPL and given their auction picks, their batting line-up now looks very much settled. Rahane will mostly open the innings with either Finn Allen or Tim Seifert while Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Cameron Green will follow them in the middle-order.
Manish Pandey, Ramandeep Singh, Rahul Tripathi, Rovman Powell and Rinku Singh are solid options at number five or below. The bowling attack seems to be the strongest for them among all teams with Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy being the sureshot starters alongside Pathirana and Rahman.
Kolkata Knight Riders - Final squad for IPL 2026
Retentions: Ajinkya Rahane, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Anukul Roy, Harshit Rana, Manish Pandey, Ramandeep Singh, Rinku Singh, Rovman Powell, Sunil Narine, Umran Malik, Vaibhav Arora, Varun Chakaravarthy
Auction Picks: Rahul Tripathi (INR 75 lakh), Finn Allen (INR 2 Cr), Tejasvi Singh (INR 3 Cr), Tim Seifert (INR 1.50 Cr), Cameron Green (INR 25.20 Cr), Sarthak Ranjan (INR 30 lakh), Daksh Kamra (INR 30 lakh), Prashant Solanki (INR 30 lakh), Matheesha Pathirana (INR 18 Cr), Kartik Tyagi (INR 30 lakh), Mustafizur Rahman (INR 9.20 Cr), Rachin Ravindra (INR 2 crore), Akash Deep (INR 1 crore)
