Faf du Plessis, Trent Boult and Kieron Pollard in SA20 mini-auction shortlist
Sunrisers Eastern Cape clinched their third SA20 title in the 2026 final • SA20
Among the overseas contingent, Kieron Pollard and Trent Boult - both having played exclusively for MI Cape Town so far - have listed their base price at R1.5 million, the highest out of a shortlist of 156 players.
The auction will feature 95 South Africans - including Test and ODI captain Temba Bavuma who has played only five games of SA20 - and 61 overseas hopefuls. England make up more than half the foreign contingent (31), including Moeen Ali who captained Antigua and Barbuda Falcons to the CPL title in September. He has listed a base price of R1.5 million as well. Jordan Cox - fresh off a breakthrough Test series against Pakistan where he made a half-century in each of the three matches - is also hoping to be picked up for at least R1.5million. He has already won the SA20, having been with Sunrisers Eastern Cape in 2022-23 and helped take Pretoria Capitals to the final last year.
A veteran of the IPL and CPL, Shimron Hetmyer is poised to take part in the SA20 for the first time having put his name up for bidding. He will be joined by his West Indies team-mate and another SA20 rookie, Shamar Joseph, who has played 27 games of franchise cricket. Joburg Super Kings, now under new coach Albie Morkel, will be on the lookout for fast bowlers having let go of Nandre Burder, Wiaan Mulder and Reece Topley, all of whom are part of the 156 at the mini-auction.
Twenty spots are up for grabs in four of the six SA20 franchises and a maximum of R35.025 million will be spent trying to fill them, including one wild card available to the Super Kings, which does not come out of their salary cap. Durban's Super Giants and Paarl Royals will not be taking part in the auction. They recently picked up Jos Buttler and Joe Root respectively to complete their 19-player squads.
The fifth season of the SA20 kicks off on January 17. Sunrisers Eastern Cape will begin as defending champions after winning their third title in the previous season. They signed Bangladesh legspinner Rishad Hossain earlier this year and his team-mate and fast bowler Nahid Rana might hope to join him having entered the auction at R1.5 million. He is the only Bangladeshi in the list of 156. USA have representation from Andries Gous who was player of the final in the European T20 Premier League. Zimbabwe's Brian Bennett, who was the sixth-highest run-scorer, and Blessing Muzarabani, the joint-third-highest wicket-taker at the 2026 T20 World Cup, are on the shortlist as well.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.