SA20: Markram heads to the auction ahead of 2026 season

Aiden Markram has decided against being retained by two-time champions Sunrisers Eastern Cape, opting to head to the auction instead ahead of the upcoming SA20 season.

ESPNcricinfo has learned that Markram, under whose captaincy Sunrisers won two successive titles in 2023 and 2024, and was the third-highest run-getter in the 2025 season where his team finished as runner-up, told the franchise he wanted to head to the auction which will be held on September 9.

Sunrisers, though, will have the option to use the right-to-match-card in case they want to buy Markram back.

SA20, which is now three seasons old, will announce its retentions list on July 23. Marquee names that have either retained or picked by franchises in the pre-signed category include Kagiso Rabada, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Faf du Plessis and Marco Jansen among the South Africans. Some of the big names in the overseas lot include Nicholas Pooran, Rashid Khan, Sunil Narine, Andre Russell and Jos Buttler.

Earlier this year, in a major shake-up to the auction process earlier this year, the SA20 decided to permit no more than six retentions or pre-signed players, the least in the tournament's short history. For the first time, a wildcard option has been added which allows franchises to pick one player - domestic or international - for a price outside of the purse.

This will be the biggest auction since the tournament was launched in 2022, with 72 out of the total 102 places available for the six franchises to fill up. The salary cap has been increased to Rand 41 million (US$2.31 million approx.) from Rand 39.1 million (US$2.2 million approx.).

The wildcard has existed from the first season but it was earlier used to pick unsold players after the auction. This season SA20 have tweaked the rule to allow teams to sign either an overseas or an existing South African domestic player from the previous season as a wildcard player.

Unlike the previous seasons where the SA20 clashed with the ILT20 - and player availability became a constant tug of war for franchises - both tournaments do not overlap much this time. The SA20 starts on Boxing Day (December 26). The ILT20 window falls between December 2 and January 4.

The following is the list of players retained by each franchise.

Retained: Trent Boult, Rashid Khan, Ryan Rickleton, George Linde, Corbin Bosch

Wild Card: Kagiso Rabada

Pre-signing: Nicholas Pooran

Pre-signing: Jonny Bairstow, AM Ghazanfar, Adam Milne

Retained: Tristan Stubbs

Wild Card: Marco Jansen

Retained: Faf du Plessis,

Wild Card: Donovan Ferreira

Pre-signing: James Vince, Akeal Hosein, Richard Gleeson

Pre-signing: Will Jacks, Sherfane Rutherford

Wild Card: Andre Russell

Retentions: Lhuan-dre Pretorius, David Miller, Bjorn Fortuin

Pre-signing: Sikandar Raza, Mujeeb-ur-Rahman

Wild Card: Rubin Hermann

Pre-signing: Sunil Narine, Jos Buttler

Retained: Noor Ahmed

Wild Card: Heinrich Klaasen