2011 World Cup winning spinner among 13 Indians to register for SA20 2026 Auction: Reports

In a latest development, 13 former Indian players have registered for the auction of the upcoming SA20 season, as reported by Cricbuzz. It is set to be the fourth season of South Africa's premier franchise T20 league. The 13 players include wrist-spinner Piyush Chawla, who was part of India's 2011 World Cup-winning squad.

The other big names in the list are those of pacers Siddharth Kaul and Ankit Rajpoot. Chawla recently announced his retirement in June 2025. Kaul and Rajpoot had retired from all forms of Indian cricket in 2024.

Notably, according to the BCCI, only those players who have retired from Indian cricket and the IPL are permitted to participate in overseas franchise leagues. Indians who have registered for the SA20 2026 auction will have a base price of 200000 Rand, except Piyush Chawla, who will have a reserve price of 1000000 Rand.

Mahesh Ahir, Anureet Singh Kathuria, Nikhil Jaga, Mohamed Faidh, KS Naveen, Ansari Marouf, Imran Khan, Venkatesh Galipelly, Sarul Kanwar, and Atul Yadav are the other 11 players apart from Chawla, Kaul, and Rajpoot. A total of 784 players have registered for the auction. However, only 84 slots would be available across six franchises.

SA20 2026 is scheduled to begin on December 26, 2025, with the final to be played on January 25, 2026.

---

Dinesh Karthik is the only Indian to have featured in the SA20 so far

Only one Indian player has been a part of the SA20 so far. That is none other than the former wicketkeeper batter Dinesh Karthik. He was signed by the Paarl Royals for the third season of the league as an overseas player. Karthik had announced his retirement in 2024 after the IPL that year.

He had a phenomenal season with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and had scored 326 runs from 13 innings at an average of 36.22 and a strike-rate of 187.35. For the Paarl Royals, Karthik scored 130 runs from eight innings at an average of 21.66 and a strike-rate of 121.49 with a half-century.

Paarl Royals finished second on the points table with seven wins from 10 games. However, they lost to SunRisers Eastern Cape in the second qualifier. Eventually, MI Cape Town won the final and will begin the upcoming season as the defending champions.