What’s up with South African T20 and Caribbean Premier League?
What’s up with South African T20 and CPL? Some 25 players, including Buttler, Roy, and Holder, have joined the South African Twenty20 League, while the Caribbean Premier League is offering a BBL deal to its best players to keep them from leaving.
Nearly 25 or more cricket players have signed up for the T20 league that Cricket South Africa (CSA) is putting together. The league is set to start in January of next year. Ten cricket players from the Caribbean islands, ten from Sri Lanka, and almost a dozen from England have joined. Meanwhile, Cricket Australia (CA) is in the process of giving Big Bash contracts to their best white-ball cricketers, such as David Warner, Steven Smith, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Cameron Green, and others.
Australian cricketers as free agents and New Zealand Cricket contracts
CA is making deals for Big Bash. This means that the best Australian cricket players won’t be allowed to participate in these new T20 leagues unless they withdraw from the format after the T20 World Cup this season and get to be “free agents.” Some New Zealand cricketers are rumored to be thinking about moving, but most of them won’t join the new T20 leagues. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) is working on new contracts to keep its cricketers committed to First-Class cricket in New Zealand.
Who joined the league?
Here are some of the big names who have already joined the league in South Africa and some who are about 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 many players that already on board.
This is in addition to the top T20 cricket players from South Africa who have already signed up for their own “domestic” league.
Right now, the list is still being made.
Caribbean Players
Kieron Pollard is on board with the Mumbai Indians, but it is unclear if the Trinidadian will play in the league in South Africa or the UAE. Sunil Narine and Andre Russell have joined the Kolkata Knight Riders, and Shimron Hetmeyer and Rovman Powell have joined the Delhi Capitals. GMR, which owns 50% of the Delhi Capitals and has invested in the UAE league, has signed Shimron Hetmeyer and Rovman Powell.
The signings are still going on. And they will keep going until the end of the World Cup. The cricket community is also waiting for the World Cup to end because it thinks that a lot of T20 cricketers will end their careers after the tournament and be free to choose what they want to do next.
Support Staff
At the same time, the people who own franchises in South Africa are busy hiring support staff. For example, lance Klusener will coach the Lucknow Super Giants, and Eric Simmons will work with Stephen Fleming for the Chennai Super Kings.