NZ series to limit Bangladesh players' IPL availability; Easwaran added to auction list

As IPL franchise representatives started descending on Abu Dhabi, it emerged that Bangladesh players may not be fully available for the 2026 season. Bangladesh are scheduled to play six white-ball games against New Zealand in April, and their participation in the IPL may therefore be limited.

There are seven Bangladesh players in the auction register, with base prices ranging from Rs 2 crore to Rs 30 lakh, but only Mustafizur Rahman has a realistic chance of being considered by IPL teams. However, if national commitments intervene, even Mustafizur may feature only as a replacement at a later stage, as he did last year.

Mustafizur (base price Rs 2 crore), Rishad Hossain (Rs 75 lakh), Taskin Ahmed (Rs 75 lakh), Tanzim Hasan Sakib (Rs 75 lakh), Nahid Rana (Rs 75 lakh), Rakibul Hasan (Rs 30 lakh) and Md Shoriful Islam (Rs 75 lakh) have made it to the final list of the auction register.

The BCCI is expected to brief the franchises on the availability of overseas players at the pre-auction meeting, scheduled at the W Hotel in Abu Dhabi on Monday evening (December 15). However, in a recent communique, it reiterated the standard procedure regarding the availability of overseas players.

"For the purposes of this Player Auction, a player's expected unavailability for part of the IPL 2026 season will be ignored. The full amount of the annual League Fee bid (assuming 100% availability) will be deducted from the Salary Cap. However, to assist Franchisees in determining their strategy, BCCI will give an expected availability for each relevant player for the IPL 2026 season," the BCCI communique on auction rules states.

The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) said it will issue NOC for its players. "We will give them NOC for most part of IPL because we want them to play as much as possible so we will bring them for minimum requirement (for the white-ball series against New Zealand)," BCB cricket operation chairman Nazmul Abedin told Cricbuzz on Sunday.

Easwaran back in auction?

Meanwhile, word has emerged that the BCCI has added a few extra players to the register that was made public recently. The BCCI is expected to disclose the new names at the briefing with the franchises on Monday evening, but it is understood that Abhimanyu Easwaran's name has been added to the spreadsheet.

Easwaran, the captain of Bengal, was in the initial list after being recommended by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) with a base price of Rs 30 lakh, but his name was missing from the final list of 350 players released recently. However, it is understood that his name has been forwarded again by a franchise and that he is among the late entrants to the register.

Easwaran (30) is primarily considered a red-ball specialist, but this year he played a couple of stellar knocks in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT). In seven SMAT innings, he scored 266 runs at an average of 44.33 with a strike rate of 152. Against Punjab, he hammered a brilliant century (130), including eight sixes, and against Services, he scored a half-century (58). Easwaran has never played in the IPL before.

(With inputs from Atif Azam in Dhaka)