SA20 AUCTION
Chawla announced his retirement from all cricket in June 2025. © BCCI/IPL
Thirteen Indian players, including Piyush Chawla, Siddharth Kaul and Ankit Rajpoot, have registered for the SA20 auction ahead of the fourth season. They are among 784 players who have signed up for the September 9 event. As mandated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), all the Indian entrants are either retired or have relinquished their claims to play for India or in the IPL.
Mahesh Ahir (Gujarat), Sarul Kanwar (Punjab), Anureet Singh Kathuria (Delhi), Nikhil Jaga (Rajasthan), Mohamed Faidh (state not mentioned), KS Naveen (Tamil Nadu), Ansari Marouf (state not mentioned), Imran Khan (UPCA), Venkatesh Galipelly (state not mentioned), and Atul Yadav (UPCA) apart from Chawla (UPCA, India), Kaul (Punjab) and Rajpoot are the Indians who are part of the massive register which is certain to be pruned ahead of the auction.
All the Indian players have a base price of 200,000 Rand, except Piyush Chawla, whose reserve price is 1,000,000 Rand. Imran Khan has been listed with a base value of 500,000 Rand. The six franchises collectively have a purse of USD 7.4 million to spend on 84 available slots at the Johannesburg auction. SA20 had earlier announced that, for Season 4, teams will be allowed one Wildcard player – either an overseas or South African cricketer – whose salary will fall outside the salary cap.
Only one Indian player – Dinesh Karthik – has previously played in the league. It was last season when represented the Paarl Royals. Unmistakably, he had retired from all forms of cricket by then, including from the IPL.
There are also 40 Pakistani players in the register, including some well-known names from the current or past national team such as Azam Khan, Imam-ul-Haq, Abrar Ahmed and Saim Ayub. Interestingly, the six SA20 franchises – MI Cape Town, Joburg Super Kings, Durban Super Giants, Sunrisers Eastern Cape, Paarl Royals and Pretoria Capitals – all owned by Indian businessmen, specifically IPL team owners, have never had a Pakistani player in their squads during the first three seasons of the league.
There are over 150 players from England in the register which has a presence of many internationals, including Jason Roy and Alex Hales. SA20 had earlier said that notable South African players available to be picked up at the auction include World Test Championship final heroes Aiden Markram, Lungi Ngidi, Wiaan Mulder and Keshav Maharaj, along with top young talent Dewald Brevis and Kwena Maphaka. T20 specialists Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje and Tabraiz Shamsi are also available.
The Season 4 of the league will run from December 26 to January 25. MI Cape Town are the defending champions.
© Cricbuzz
