Quinton de Kockhas made a return to the pool of players to feature at the auction for the 2026 Indian Premier League. The South African wicketkeeper-batter's name will appear in the third lot of players. The event is scheduled to take place on December 16 in Abu Dhabi.

Kolkata Knight Riders had decided on releasing him ahead of the auction. Initially, he had not featured in the list of players to be a part of the auction. However, it is understood that KKR themselves pushed for the inclusion of the top-order batter, who smashed a dynamic ton against India in the third and final ODI of the series in Visakhapatnam on December 6.

It is important to note that de Kock's base price has been set at INR 1 crore. This is a net drop of 50% from his base price at the mega auction last year. His base price was INR 2 crore ahead of IPL 2025. de Kock was purchased at INR 3.60 crore. 

Further, the auction is slated to feature a total of 350 players. The figure is said to have been finalised after plenty of consultations with the franchises. de Kock headlines the fresh list of 35 players (23 Indian and 12 overseas) which were initially not present in the initial spreadsheet.

"The auction will feature 350 players and will commence at 1 pm UAE time (2.30 PM IST) on Tuesday, 16 December, at the Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi," stated the BCCI in a mail sent to the franchises on December 8, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

As per the BCCI, the auction will kickstart with a round of capped players in the following order: batters, all-rounders, wicketkeeper-batters, fast bowlers, and spin bowlers. This will be followed by a round of uncapped players.

Fresh inclusions:

Overseas players: Quinton de Kock (South Africa), George Linde (South Africa), Connor Eztherhuizen (South Africa), Bayanda Majola (South Africa), Kusal Perera (Sri Lanka), Dunith Wellalage (Sri Lanka), Traveen Mathew (Sri Lanka), Binura Fernando (Sri Lanka), Miles Hammond (England), Dan Lategan (England), Akeem Auguste (West Indies), Arab Gul (Afghanistan)

Indian players: Vishnu Solanki, Yash Dicholkar, Ayaz Khan, Jikku Bright, Srihari Nair, Sadek Hussain, Sabir Khan, Brijesh Sharma, Kanishk Chouhan, Aaron George, Madhav Bajaj, Shreevathsa Acharya, Yashraj Punja, Sahil Parakh, Roshan Waghsare, Dhurmil Matkar, Naman Pushpak, Parikshit Valsangkar, Purav Agarwal, Rishabh Chouhan, Sagar Solanki, Izaz Sawariya, Aman Shekawat