South Africa’s famous cricket league SA20 is ready for its fourth season, and this time a list of explosive players has been prepared for the player auction to be held in Johannesburg on 9 September.
Each franchise will have to select at least 9 South Africans, maximum 7 foreigners, 2 under-23 local players and one wildcard player in their 19-member team.
This time the auction is bigger than previous years, as more than 800 players had registered, which is the highest in the history of SA20.
But the surprising thing is that there is not a single Indian player in this list, this time no Indian cricketer is included in the list of 541 players.
The fourth season of SA20 is going to start from 26 December 2025, and for this six franchises will prepare their team of 19-19 players. This time 300 South African and 241 foreign players are participating in the auction.
There is a budget of US $ 7.37 million to fill a total of 84 vacancies. But the absence of Indian players has surprised everyone.
SA20 2025: Why no Indian players?
Dinesh Karthik, who played for Paarl Royals last season, was the only Indian who played in SA20. But this time due to BCCI rules, no Indian player is in the auction.
BCCI clearly says that only those players who have given up their claim to play for India or IPL or have retired can play in foreign leagues.
This time 13 Indian players like Piyush Chawla, Siddharth Kaul and Ankit Rajput had registered, but their names did not appear in the final list.
According to Cricbuzz, “All the Indian entrants are either retired or have relinquished their claims to play for India or in the IPL,”
Why do international stars dominate?
The auction includes big names from South Africa such as Proteas T20 captain Aiden Markram, Anrich Nortje, Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Keshav Maharaj, Tabrez Shamsi, Ottneil Bartman and Gerald Coetzee.
Apart from this, young stars like Dewald Brevis and Kwena Mphaka are also ready to make a splash in the auction.
Among the foreign players, there are big names like Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman. Shakib, who is Bangladesh’s highest run and wicket taker in T20I, is in the race to become the first Bangladeshi in SA20.
England’s James Anderson, Alex Hales, Moeen Ali and last season’s hero Tom Abell are also in the auction.
