No pay hike for Green despite record IPL Auction bid

Cameron Green has broken Mitchell Starc's record to become the most expensive overseas player in Indian Premier League history.

But the allrounder's bank account will only be credited with A$3m out of the Kolkata Knight Riders' winning bid of A$4.27m (INR 25.2cr) at Thursday's IPL Auction in Abu Dhabi due to a new rule that has put a ceiling of INR 18 crore on the payout to non-Indian players.

Fluctuations in currency conversation rates mean Green will receive a smaller dollar value than what he did in 2023 when the Mumbai Indians bought him for INR 17.5 crore, which at that time amounted to A$3.15 million.

Mumbai was again the first side to raise the paddle for the West Australian but backed out when the bidding heated up.

Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings also showed interest in securing Green's services, before KKR ultimately emerged the winning party.

An error from his manager to list him as a batter worked in Green's favour as it landed him in the first set of players to come up in the auction.

But after the 26-year-old clarified in Adelaide that he was fully available to bowl in the competition, having recovered from a back surgery, the IPL franchises shed the inhibition to bid big and overshoot the INR 18 crore threshold.

KKR will have to pay the access amount of over a million dollars from their winning bid for Green towards the BCCI's player development program.

The franchise had come into the auction with the most number of spots to fill in their squad for 2026 after letting go of more than half their side from the last season. They also had the biggest purse of all sides, with INR 64.3 crore (A$10.9 million) available to be spent.

That KKR would go hard to secure Green's services was foreseeable after they parted ways with big-hitting allrounder Andre Russell after 11 years of association.

In taking the bid for him to INR 25.2cr, the franchise overshadowed the INR 24.75 crore they had shelled out for Starc two years ago.

Earlier, South Australia and Melbourne Renegades youngster Jake Fraser-McGurk had gone unsold after his name came up first for bidding on the day.

South Africa's David Miller was the first to be sold, claimed by the Delhi Capitals for the base price of INR 2 crore (A$339,000).