JOHANNESBURG: Chris Morris, Lungi Ngidi, Andile Phehlukwayo, Tabraiz Shamsi, Dane Vilas and David Miller have secured million-rand contracts in the player draft for the upcoming Mzansi Super League, South Africa’s new city-based T20 league. They were all picked in the first round, the six teams having already been allocated headlining Protea players last week and then picking their marquee international players in a mini-draft before the main event.
Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Eoin Morgan, Dawid Malan, Jason Roy and Rashid Khan formed the marquee international picks. All will be away for some portion of the tournament, however, having also signed on for the Abu Dhabi T10 League that runs from November 23 to December 2 – right in the middle of the month-long MSL, which starts on November 16 and ends on December 16.
With the MSL tournament regulations stipulating that every team must include a minimum of three overseas players (including the marquee internationals), three nationally contracted players (inclusive of the allocated Proteas) and a minimum of one domestic rookie, most of the teams opted to build their squads along similar lines to those seen in the domestic franchises – with a few exceptions.
There were some surprises among those who went unsold, including Dwayne Smith, Lendl Simmons, Brendan Taylor, Rilee Rossouw, Sam Billings, Shoaib Malik, Marlon Samuels and Mohammad Irfan. Wayne Parnell and David Wiese might have gone to Durban Heat and Paarl Rocks respectively, but the draft had passed their reserve prices before those teams put in unsuccessful bids.