The auction dates for the upcoming SA20 2026 season has been set for September 9. Notably, the Indian players who had registered their names unfortunately did not make the final cut in the auction pool. It was understood that a total of 13 Indians have put their names in – Piyush Chawla, Siddharth Kaul, Ankit Rajpoot, Sarul Kanwar, Anureet Singh Kathuria, Ansari Marouf, Mahesh Ahir, Nikhil Jaga, Mohamed Faidh, KS Naveen, Imran Khan, Venkatesh Galipelly, and Atul Yadav.
However, no one featured in the trimmed list of 541 names -but what could be the reason behind it.
Speaking on the absence of Indian players, former South Africa captain and SA20 league commissioner Graeme Smith revealed,
“Indian players is always a fluid situation depending on who’s retiring and who’s available. I think it was like 13 or 14 Indian players in the auction.”
Smith added, “You don’t see an abundance of them involved in T20 leagues around the world. It’s not a new thing. One thing that we have seen from our stats is that we’ve built a really strong viewership in India.”
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A significant change for the SA20 2026 auction is the reduction of player retentions, with each team now permitted to keep only six players—the lowest number since the tournament’s inception.
Apart from that, the salary cap has been increased from R39.1 million (approx. $2.2 million) to R41 million (approx. $2.31 million), elevating the SA20 to the league with the world’s second-highest salary cap, trailing only the Indian Premier League (IPL).
A Right to Match (RTM) feature will be introduced, granting franchises the ability to reclaim a player from the previous season by matching the highest auction bid for them. The quantity of RTM cards each team receives will be determined by how many South African players they have retained.
Furthermore, the league has abolished the rookie draft and implemented a new rule that obligates every franchise to sign a minimum of two players under the age of 23.
The fourth season is scheduled to commence on December 26, with defending champions MI Cape Town taking on the Durban’s Super Giants.
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