• Source:JND
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SA20 League 2026 Auction: The SA20 League Commissioner, Graeme Smith, has explained the absence of Indian players in the upcoming auction pool as a "fluid situation" despite many Indian players registering their names.

A total of 241 foreign players will go under the hammer for 25 slots, while 308 South Africans will compete for 59 places in the SA20 2025-26 auction to be held on September 9 in Johannesburg.

"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," the former South African captain told Indian media in a virtual interaction facilitated by SA20.

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The players who had recorded for the SA20 2026 auction included 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.

The BCCI bars active Indian cricketers -- international or domestic -- from playing in overseas franchise cricket to protect the Indian Premier League's (IPL) exclusivity. For Indian cricketers to pursue overseas league opportunities, they need to first retire from all forms of Indian cricket and then secure an NOC from the Board before seeking overseas opportunities.

Former all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin fell into that category but the off-spinner, who retired from IPL recently, has registered for UAE's ILT20 to be held around the same time.

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"What we do is we send the auction lists, which was over 800 names, to the franchises. They then send us their short-list back and then we collate a shortened list that goes to the auction," explaining the auction process, Smith said.

"For us this year, it was a big stepping stone. It was also, you know, after three years of the tournament, we felt that it was a time to kind of reset the regulations," he added.

On the absence of Indians, Smith said: "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."

(With PTI Inputs)