SA20: South African T20 League’s Inaugural Auction Highlights

A meteoric rise in T20 cricket has been sustained through the new T20 league, SA20,  that held its inaugural auction on Monday, 19th September. With this, the franchisees appear to have decided on their final roster.

The Twenty20 cricket franchise league in South Africa will conduct its inaugural season in 2022–2023. Cricket South Africa is in charge of the tournament. The league is scheduled for January through February 2023.

The auction for the first season of South Africa’s SA 20 League included up to 314 players. All 6 teams participated in the action-packed auction process, where some major names started bidding wars while others, including national team leaders Temba Bavuma and Dean Elgar, were passed over and went unsold!

Tristan Stubbs, South African batting prodigy, set off a frenzy of bidding when Sunrisers Eastern Cape acquired his services for an astounding 9.2 million rand (plus USD 500,000). Strong bidding was seen for players with a wage ceiling of R 34 million (USD 1.9 million, INR 15 crore, approximately), with Stubbs, who plays for the Mumbai Indians in the IPL, being the most sought-after.

Fast bowler Lungi Ngidi was the first player to be up for bid during the marquee player list portion of the auction. He was acquired by Paarl Royals for R 3.4 million. Shortly after, they made a second acquisition, selecting Tabraiz Shamsi, the former No. 1 T20I spinner, for R 4.3 million. The other two players to break the four million rand barrier in the first round were Heinrich Klaasen (R 4.5M) and Dwaine Pretorius (R 4.1M), both of whom were signed by Durban’s Super Giants.

West Indies’ Odean Smith originally had trouble finding buyers after entering the auction with a starting price of R 1.75 Million. Other well-known players like Eoin Morgan and James Neesham received no offers initially. However, in the accelerated auction, MI Cape Town chose Smith, Morgan was sold to the Royals, and Neesham to the Capitals.

IPL franchisees own all six of the league’s teams: MI Cape Town (Reliance), Pretoria Capitals (JSW), Paarl Royals (Royals Sports Group), Durban Super Giants (RPG-Sanjiv Goenka), Johannesburg Super Kings (India Cements), and Sunrisers Eastern Cape (Sunrisers Hyderabad owner Kaviya Maran). 

Top 10 Players sold in SA20 Auction: