With just two days left for the IPL 2026 Auction, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has introduced a new tie-breaker role for the event. It is a rule that is aimed at resolving high-octane secret bids in special case scenarios. For instance, Kieron Pollard (2010) and Ravindra Jadeja (2012) were two players who were signed after rigorous bidding and a huge secret bid at the end.
IPL 2026 is a mini-auction and while only two teams (KKR and CSK) have significant balance, there are seven teams who are bunched together closely. Only MI with a purse balance of just Rs 2.75 crore are not going to be part of any such bids. Bidding wars are expected for some star overseas players with Australia's Cameron Green topping the list alongside England's Liam Livingstone.
So, what is the new tie-breaker rule? It is a simple solution provided by the BCCI. If two or more teams are locked on a matching bid for a particular player, they will be given a 'tie-breaker form' by the Board. In this form, they will have to write a 'secret bid' amount in Indian Rupees.
This amount won't be the price that the franchises have to pay to the player. Instead, it will be the amount that they will have to pay to the BCCI. It will still be called the 'tie-breaker bid' and this twist gives a new variance to the bidding process, because there is a sense of the unknown to this process.
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In yesteryear, the secret bids had a theory around it, given that both teams had already bid upto a certain limit for the player and would need to go logically go for a higher amount to secure the deal. Here, the amount is to be paid to the BCCI and so, there isn't a formula for teams to crack the deal, and this should increase the fun.
The team that wins the written secret bid will have to pay that amount in Indian Rupees to the BCCI within 30 days of the auction's date of December 16. The price for the player will remain the amount on which the two teams were locked.
