Why Cameron Green get INR 18 Crore Despite Sold for 25.2 Crore?

The Australian all-rounder Cameron Green has been the headline of the IPL 2026 auction as Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings had a bidding war for the player.

He was bought by the Knight Riders for INR 25.2 crore during the event held at Abu Dhabi. However, Green will only get INR 18 crore as his IPL salary.

This is because of the new ‘maximum fee’ rule that the IPL introduced last year to address the concerns of the franchises that some overseas players register exclusively for the mini-auction to earn a higher amount.

Hence, the IPL came up with maximum fee rule where no overseas player can be paid more that INR 18 crore, which was the highest slab for franchises retaining players ahead of the IPL 2025 auction.

Cameron Green has become the third highest expensive buy in the IPL history. He will be included with the names like Rishabh Pant who tops the list with attracting a bid of INR 27 crore from LSG and Shreyas Iyers who stands second in the list with a price of INR 26.75 crore from PBKS.

The 26 year old has played for Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, scoring 707 runs at a strike rate of 150 and picked 16 wickets in 29 games.

He missed the previous edition of the tournament due to injury. He returned to action as a specialist batter in June but has been playing as an all-rounder in the Ashes 2025/26 against England.

Presenting Kolkata’s all-new GREEN initiative 😉💜 pic.twitter.com/1lBJ7NTNPx

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) December 16, 2025

What is Maximum fee Rule?

As per the rule, if the bid exceeds INR 18 crore, the additional money would be utilised by the BCCI for players welfare.

“Any overseas player’s auction fee at a small auction will be lower than the highest retention price (of INR 18 crore) and the highest auction price at the big auction. In case the highest auction price at the big auction is INR 20 crore, then INR 18 crore will be the cap. If the highest auction price at the big auction is INR 16 crore, then the cap will be INR 16 crore.

“The incremental amount over INR 16 or 18 crore, as the case may be, will be deposited with BCCI. The incremental amount deposited with BCCI will be utilised towards players’ welfare,” says the rule.

Top Five Expensive Buys in IPL 2026 Auction

Apart from Cameron Green, Sri Lanka’s Matheesha Pathirana, two Indian Uncapped players Kartik Sharma and Prashant Veer and Liam Livingstone were other expensive buys during the auction.