Kolkata Knight Riders head into the IPL 2026 auction with the biggest purse under new head coach Abhishek Nayar.
After leaving out a number of players in the retention, KKR have a purse of Rs 64.3 crore
in the auction as they have 13 slots, six of them being overseas players.
IPL 2026 is going to be a mini auction, which means the Knights won't have a big player pool. But the Knight Riders had an outstanding outing in the last mini auction, which was held in 2023 before the IPL 2024 season.
KKR made significant moves in the IPL 2024 mini auction by acquiring a blend of experienced international stars and promising Indian talent to strengthen their squad across all departments. The standout buy was the Australian pace bowler Mitchell Starc, who broke auction records with a massive ₹24.75 crore price tag, making him the highest-paid player in their auction spree. Supporting the bowling attack, KKR added overseas bowlers Mujeeb Ur Rahman (₹2 crore) and Gus Atkinson (₹1 crore), along with Indian bowlers Chetan Sakariya (₹50 lakh) and Sakib Hussain (₹20 lakh).
In the batting lineup, KKR brought in Sherfane Rutherford from the West Indies for ₹1.5 crore, and bolstered their Indian batting reserves with Manish Pandey (₹50 lakh) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (₹20 lakh). Ramandeep Singh was also a recruitment in that year for a fee of just ₹20 lakh.
As the Knights head into the 2026 auction, only three players bought from that auction remain with the team.
Manish Pandey continues to be with KKR for IPL 2026 and was one of the retained players. The other two are Angkrish Raghuvanshi and Ramandeep Singh, both with significant pay rises in these two years. Both Raghuvanshi and Ramandeep were bought at their base price of ₹20 lakh back then, but Raghuvanshi's price has increased to ₹3 crore, while Ramandeep currently earns ₹4 crore, with a salary hike of 1400 and 1800 percent respectively.
