India, Jan. 1 -- Cameron Green's INR25.20-crore IPL 2026 auction headline looks like a financial knockout. Comparatively, Matheesha Pathirana's INR18-crore buy looks smaller.

But once you follow the money through IPL rules, India's withholding tax, and then the player's home-country tax, there's a very real scenario where Pathirana ends up taking home more than Green, despite both effectively being on the same IPL salary.

IPL's 2026 mini-auction introduced a "maximum fee" rule for overseas players: bidding can go above Rs.18 crore, but an overseas player's pay cheque is capped at INR18 crore, with any "over-cap" portion routed to a BCCI player-welfare mechanism (as reported).

That's why Green's record bid for KKR (INR25.20 crore) does ...