IPL 2025: South Africa players to be available for playoffs as CSA takes a U-turn

South Africa will face Australia in the final of the ICC WTC 2023-25 at the Lord’s from June 11.

Just hours after stating that the South African players will have to return from the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 resumption on May 25, Cricket South Africa (CSA) has done a massive U-turn and stated that the players can stay with their respective IPL franchises.

The IPL 2025 will return on May 17, with the competition final scheduled for June 3, the BCCI confirmed on May 12. Given that the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 final is scheduled to start at the Lord’s on June 11, this puts South African and Australian players in a difficult situation.

CSA stated that they had informed BCCI that the players would return on May 26 and reaffirmed their commitment to the WTC final preparations initially.

“It is an individual decision, obviously, to return or to play or to continue. One thing we’ve made clear, and we are finalizing this with the IPL and the BCCI, is sticking to our original plan when it comes to the WTC preparations.

May 26 is the latest for the test guys to come back. The original plans don’t change because the No. 1 priority is the WTC final. We’ve been engaging with them over the last day or two to make sure we’re all on the same page,” CSA’s director of national teams and high performance, Enoch Nkwe, said during a press conference.

“The matter is being discussed”—CSA official makes U-turn

Nkwe then retracted his comments, stating that the return date has been rescheduled, according to a report published in the West Australian Today. According to Nkwe, CSA, the BCCI, and IPL teams are having discussions at the executive and board levels.

“Correction—the squad will resume training for the game on June 3rd. The matter is being discussed higher up than me. At ground level, we are focusing on preps for the WTC final,” the report quoted Nkwe as saying.

Kagiso Rabada (Gujarat Titans), Lungi Ngidi (Royal Challengers Bengaluru), Tristan Stubbs (Delhi Capitals), Aiden Markram (Lucknow Super Giants), Ryan Rickelton (Mumbai Indians), Corbin Bosch (MI), Marco Jansen (Punjab Kings), and Wiaan Mulder (Sunrisers Hyderabad) are the eight South African players in the IPL 2025 who have been named in the Proteas’ ICC WTC 2023-25 final squad.

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