Franchises were allowed to retain any number of players from their squad,[6] including traded players while excluding players signed as temporary replacements.[7] Franchises were required to submit their retention lists before 15 November 2025.[8] Chennai retained sixteen players, including captain Ruturaj Gaikwad and former captains MS Dhoni.[9][10] Chennai also traded their former captain Ravindra Jadeja along with Sam Curran to Rajasthan Royals in return for Sanju Samson.[11]
The season's auction took place in December 2025 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.[14] The auction purse for each franchise was set at ₹125 crore (US$15million),[9] with franchises deducting an amount from the purse for every retained player.[6][15] Chennai had a purse remaining of ₹43.40 crore (US$5.1million).[16] Chennai bought nine players in the auction, including five capped players and four overseas players.[17][18]
Squad
Players with international caps as of start of 2026 IPL are listed in bold.
Ages are as of 26March2026(2026-03-26).
* denotes a player who was unavailable for rest of the season.
India
Australia
South Africa
Afghanistan
West Indies
New Zealand
England