SA20 2026 to have six retentions per side and a total of 72 player slots will be available for the auction.
SA20 2026, With nearly two-thirds of the player pool up for auction on September 9, the fourth season of the SA20 is about to undergo a significant upheaval. The smallest number of retentions or pre-signed players allowed in the tournament’s brief existence will be six for franchises.
This indicates that 72 player slots—or 63% of the 108 spots available across the six franchises—are up for auction.
The squad is made up of at least 11 South Africans and no more than seven foreign players than in previous years. There is now an R41 million (US$2.31 million) salary cap instead of R39.1 million (US$2.2 million), and teams are allowed to sign one wildcard player whose fee is not covered by the salary ceiling. The SA20 has the second-highest wage cap in the world, after the IPL, due to the amount of money available. IPL teams own all six of the SA20 franchises.
Franchises will be able to match the winning bid for a player that played for them in season three by using a Right to Match (RTM) card. The number of South African players that the franchises have kept will decide how many RTMs there are.
Teams will need to sign at least two under-23 players after the rookie draft was cancelled.
The SA20 has been pushed forward from its customary January start date because there won’t be any home Test matches in the 2025–26 summer (because the national men’s team will be playing overseas until mid-December and the venue will be renovated for the 2027 ODI World Cup). It is scheduled to begin on Boxing Day and end on January 26. In addition to having a somewhat longer playing window in 2027 and 2028, the SA20 will return to a January to mid-February window. There are still thirty-four matches and six franchises.