All teams will compete to acquire players.  (l teams) 

IPL Trophy: The retention process for IPL 2026 has ended, and all teams    (l teams)    have released the list of retained and released players. Now, with the completion of the IPL retention process, fans were curious about when and where the auction would be held. Now, the IPL has answered this question. The IPL press release states that the mini auction for IPL 2026 will be held in Abu Dhabi on December 16th.

A total of 77 slots are available for auction.
In the IPL 2026 retention process, all teams have retained a total of 173 players, including 49 foreign players. A combined purse of ₹237.55 crore will be available for the 77 player slots in the auction. Each team can retain a maximum of 25 players.

KKR has the largest purse
Kolkata Knight Riders will have a purse of ₹64.3 crore, the largest among the 10 teams. This is to fill a maximum of 13 slots, including six overseas spots. Chennai Super Kings have ₹43.4 crore to fill a maximum of nine available slots. KKR has the largest purse after IPL retentions, so they are expected to attract higher bids.

KKR Releases Major Players
KKR has released high-priced players like Venkatesh Iyer (₹23.75 crore) and Andre Russell (₹12 crore). The team has also dropped Quinton de Kock and Moeen Ali from the squad. KKR will have to rebuild their team from scratch. Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy, Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana, and Angkrish Raghuvanshi have been retained. Ajinkya Rahane captained KKR last season, but the team didn’t perform well under his leadership.