Piyush Chawla enters SA20 auction after retirement from professional cricket
Published - 22 Aug 2025, 10:05 PM | Updated - 22 Aug 2025, 11:35 PM
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The 36-year-old former India National Cricket Team and Mumbai Indians (MI) leg-spinner Piyush Chawla has registered himself for the upcoming SA20 auction.
Piyush Chawla is not the only Indian to enter the SA20 auction, as there are 12 more Indian players who will be up for grabs during the event in South Africa.
Piyush Chawla retired from professional cricket on June 6, 2025
On June 6, Piyush Chawla announced his retirement from professional cricket, ending his career that spanned over two decades. He played three Tests, 25 ODIs, and seven T20Is for India and 192 matches in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Chawla represented four teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL) - Mumbai Indians (MI), Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Punjab Kings (PBKS), and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) - and had a successful career.
The leg-spinner, who was part of India's T20 World Cup-winning squad and ODI World Cup-winning squad, wanted to play IPL 2025 but went unsold in the auction and was recently seen in action in the World Championship of Legends.
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Piyush Chawla among 13 Indians in SA20 auction
In his retirement post, Piyush Chawla mentioned that he will "step away from the crease", but it seems like now he has made a U-turn and wants to play SA20 in South Africa.
With his retirement from Indian cricket, he became eligible to play overseas leagues and is now aiming to get a deal in SA20, where all the teams are owned by IPL franchises.
Other than Piyush Chawla, Mahesh Ahir (Gujarat), Sarul Kanwar (Punjab), Anureet Singh Kathuria (Delhi), Nikhil Jaga (Rajasthan), Mohamed Faidh (state not mentioned), KS Naveen (Tamil Nadu), Ansari Marouf (state not mentioned), Imran Khan (UPCA), Venkatesh Galipelly (state not mentioned), Atul Yadav (UPCA), Siddarth Kaul (Punjab) and Ankit Rajpoot are part of the list that will be trimmed, as per Cricbuzz.
Chawla has set his base price as 1,000,000 Rand, while the other Indians have a base price of 200,000 Rand, except Imran Khan, who has a base price of 500,000 Rand.
Notably, the current Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) coach Dinesh Karthik is the only player from India to have featured in SA20 so far.
40 Pakistani players register for SA20 auction
The SA20 Season 4 Player Auction will be held in Johannesburg on Tuesday, September 9, and a total of 784 players have signed up for the event.
Out of those, a total of 40 Pakistani players have registered for the auction, including Azam Khan, Imam-ul-Haq, Abrar Ahmed, and Saim Ayub. 150 players from England have also registered for the event.
For the upcoming SA20 auction, the teams have been given a salary cap of R41-million to spend on the players, and it is the highest franchise T20 League salary cap outside of India. Also, each team has 19 player slots in their final squad, including a Wildcard.
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