Anderson, Shakib headline 549-player SA20 auction list
The list also includes Nepal's Airee, while Short and Hatzoglou are the only two players from Australia
ESPNcricinfo staff
01-Sep-2025
James Anderson returned to T20 cricket after nearly 11 years • Getty Images
Former England fast bowler James Anderson is among the 549 players who are set to go under the hammer in the SA20 2025-26 auction on September 9.
The 43-year-old Anderson is among 96 players from England in the auction pool. These also include Moeen Ali, Alex Hales and Tom Abell, the Player of the Match in the final of SA20 2024. Anderson made a return to T20 cricket after nearly 11 years when he played for Lancashire in the T20 Blast, followed by three of Manchester Originals' eight matches in the Hundred.
Allrounder Shakib Al Hasan and fast bowler Mustafizur Rahman are among 15 players from Bangladesh in the auction pool.
D'Arcy Short and Peter Hatzoglou are the only two Australians in the auction list with the BBL set to overlap with the SA20. There are 28 West Indies players and 24 Sri Lanka players in the auction, while Dipendra Singh Airee is the only Nepal player in the pruned auction pool.
Aiden Markram, who decided against getting retained by Sunrisers Eastern Cape, headlines the 308 players from South Africa in the list, which also includes fellow T20 World Cup 2024 runners-up Anrich Nortje, Quinton de Kock, Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi and Gerald Coetzee among others.
A total of 241 overseas players will go under the hammer for a maximum of 25 available slots, while 308 South Africans will vie for the remaining 59 spots. Pretoria Capitals head into the auction with the largest purse of R32.5 million (USD 1.86 million approx.). They have 13 slots to fill, five of them overseas. MI Cape Town have the smallest purse with R11.5 million (USD 0.65 million approx.) and 12 slots, including four overseas, to fill. Each of the six teams also have to select a minimum of two Under-23 players in their 19-member squads.