SA T20 league: Buttler & Roy among 25+ signed

A total of close to 25 or more cricketers are found to have pursued the T20 association being drifted by Cricket South Africa (CSA) and planned to start off in January next year.

Around 10 cricketers from the Caribbean islands, 10 from Sri Lanka and close to twelve names from England have come ready. Meanwhile, TOI has discovered that Cricket Australia (CA) is inside the procedure of giving Huge Bash contracts to their leading white-ball cricketers including David Warner, Steven Smith, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Cameron Green among others.

This suggests, top Australian cricketers won’t be out there to play in these new T20 leagues until a couple of them resolve to resign from the format altogether post the T20 World Cup this year and turn ‘free-agents’.

Cricketers from New Zealand as well, barring a few who are learnt to be contemplating a move, will avoid the spic and span T20 league. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) is in the process of drafting fresh contracts for their cricketers to remain devoted to local First-Class cricket back home.

Here are some of the big names who have signed up for the league in South Africa as of now while some others are yet to.

Jos Buttler, Liam Livingstone, Eoin Morgan, Jason Roy, Sam Curran, Adil Rashid, Tymal Mills from England; Jason Holder, Alzari Joseph, Obed McCoy, Dushmantha Chameera, Maheesh Theekshana, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Harry Tector are among the few names currently ready.

Buttler, Roy, among 25-plus names signed up by SA T20 league pic.twitter.com/XubdRrDFSK

— sports news (@CricketDeDaNaDa) July 28, 2022

That is alongside all the top South African T20 cricketers who are now ready for their own special ‘domestic’ league. The list is still a work in progress as of now.

Mumbai Indians have Kieron Pollard on board although it’s muddled whether the Trinidadian will make himself available for the league in South Africa or the UAE. The Kolkata Knight Riders have signed Sunil Narine and Andre Russell while GMR – the half owner of Delhi Capitals who has contributed to the UAE association has joined Shimron Hetmeyer and Rovman Powell.

The strategy for those signings stays to be in progress and can continue till the end of the World Cup.

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The cricket fraternity is waiting for the World Cup to end because it expects quite a few cricketers will walk around the dusk of their T20 career post the match and will probably be allowed to make their choices.

Meanwhile, the franchise owners in South Africa are furthermore bustling signing support staff. The Lucknow SuperGiants have signed up with Lance Klusener as coach while Chennai Super Kings have hired Eric Simmons to work with Stephen Fleming.