MI Cape Town - Mumbai Indians' franchise in the upcoming CSA T20 league - have announced Rashid Khan, Liam Livingstone, Sam Curran, Kagiso Rabada and Dewald Brevis as their five signings ahead of the player auction.
As per the league's rules, each of the six franchises will get to pre-sign five players - three overseas, one South Africa international player and one uncapped South African player - prior to the auction, and MI Cape Town are the first team to announce their list of players.
"I'm excited as we begin our journey in building MI Cape Town," Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio, the owners of MI Cape Town, said. "With our direct player signings, we have taken the first step towards building the MI philosophy - having a strong core around which the team will be planned. I am glad to welcome Rashid, Kagiso, Liam, Sam, to the #OneFamily and happy to have Dewald continue with us on this new journey."
On Wednesday, the CSA league had announced that it had signed over 30 marquee players and that each squad could have 17 players on their roster.
While no other team has announced signings yet, it has been confirmed that Jos Buttler, Moeen Ali, Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Eoin Morgan, Jason Holder, Jason Roy and many others will participate in the league. While Livingstone and Buttler will earn $US500,000 each, Moeen will take home $400,000, du Plessis 350,000 and the likes of Rabada, de Kock, Miller, Morgan and Curran will get $300,000 each.
So far 11 England names have signed up for the league - the largest overseas representation - followed by 10 from Sri Lanka. As expected, there are no Pakistani names in the list.
The CSA release on Wednesday also said the auction would take place "in the next few weeks" before the league begins in January 2023. All six franchises of the league have been bought by groups that own teams in the IPL and the league is likely to allow four overseas players in the playing XI with no requirements for transformation as of now.