South Africa's SA20 to outrank Australia's Big Bash League 

image-l7hzqwtcGraeme Smith / Source: Twitter

South Africa’s new Twenty20 league's commissioner Graeme Smith, on Wednesday (August 31) confirmed that the inaugural edition of SA20 will outweigh Australia's Big Bash League in terms of players' availability. 

The newly-named SA20, set to get underway on January 23 next year will face a direct clash with Australia's Big Bash League (BBL) and it might raise an issue of overseas players' availability in the leagues. 

However, former South Africa captain Graeme Smith cleared the air, stating they have already signed legal agreements with the players and will be released before the commencement of the SA20.

“They have a different structure this season, so the players in our league who have signed up will be there up until the early days of January so that they will be available. They'll be released to come and play here, from where they'll be fully available for the South African league.” 

SA20 Players Auction To Be Held On September 19

The much-anticipated South Africa league consists of six franchises, based in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Paarl, Port Elizabeth, and Pretoria – all bought by owners from the Indian Premier League. 

All the franchises have already started the process of player recruitment and to finalize the squad for the six-team competition an auction will be held later this month on September 19. 

It is pertinent to mention that each of the SA20 teams will be allowed to field a maximum of four overseas players just like the Indian Premier League. 

"We've got an extensive list of international players that we're sorting out for the auction. We're still finalizing some of the auction details and we're sorting out the player registration because of the large number of players."  

"There has been an element of pre-signing that has been taking place and the teams have a purse of $2 million (£1.7 million) that already includes the pre-signed players. A lot of work has gone into it and we're very excited with what we've done and what we can create going forward."

South Africa's T20 competition has signed the deals with some of the best T20 stars including England's Liam Livingstone, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Moeen Ali, Jason Holder, and Rashid Khan and Kyle Mayers.

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