Mustafizur Rahman and six Bangladesh team-mates register for the IPL 2027 auction

Bangladesh's leading cricketers are back in the IPL pool for the first time since Mustafizur Rahman's forced release pushed the two boards apart

Seven Bangladesh players have been put forward for the IPL 2027 mini-auction, the Bangladesh Cricket Board confirming the entries after the BCCI wrote to national boards asking for the names of players interested in taking part.

The list is headed by Mustafizur Rahman, whose removal from Kolkata Knight Riders before the 2026 season set off a chain of events that ended with Bangladesh missing a World Cup.

Shahriar Nafees, the BCB's cricket operations chairman, played the development down as he confirmed it, telling India Today: "It is a regular procedure for the IPL mini-auction."

Seven names on the register

Alongside Mustafizur are the fast bowlers Taskin Ahmed, Nahid Rana, Shoriful Islam and Hasan Mahmud, the leg-spinner Rishad Hossain and the batter Towhid Hridoy.

Several of them arrive off a strong season. Hridoy made an unbeaten 242 against West Indies in Sylhet last week, a Bangladesh Test record, and Hasan Mahmud took six wickets in the same match, although the tourists still took the series 1-0.

Rishad has the most franchise currency of the group after a first Big Bash season for Hobart Hurricanes that brought 15 wickets in 12 matches at 20.86, with best figures of 3-26. He was named the club's player of the year and retained for this season.

The full list of registered players from every country is expected later this month, once the franchises have settled their squads.

The release that started it

Kolkata Knight Riders bought Mustafizur for 9.20 crore rupees at the IPL 2026 mini-auction in Abu Dhabi, against a base price of 2 crore, after a long contest with Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals.

It made him the most expensive Bangladesh player in the tournament's history, and he never played a match for the money.

Within days of the auction the BCCI instructed the franchise to let him go, against a background of strained relations between the two countries. Kolkata confirmed the release and were allowed to sign a replacement.

A World Cup Bangladesh did not play

The BCB answered by refusing to send a team to India for the 2026 ICC Men's T20 World Cup, which India co-hosted with Sri Lanka, and asked for its matches to be moved to the Sri Lankan leg on security grounds.

The ICC turned the request down, saying its own assessment had found no credible threat to the team in India.

Bangladesh withdrew from the tournament and Scotland took their place, leaving one of the game's full members out of a World Cup it had qualified for.

What has to happen before December 16

Franchises confirm their retained and released players on November 17, a deadline the BCCI pushed back from November 15 earlier this month.

The mini-auction follows on December 16 in Goa, and the final pool goes to the ten teams once registrations have closed.

Registering is not selection: each of the seven still needs a franchise to bid, and overseas slots are the tightest part of any squad.

A tour still without a schedule

A proposed white-ball tour of Bangladesh by India, three ODIs and three T20Is, is pencilled in for January 2027, though no schedule has been confirmed.

Nafees said those involved were "still hopeful" about it.

Whether any of the seven is bought will not be known until the room in Goa opens on December 16.