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IPL 2025 Playoffs Will See South Africa’s WTC Final Bound Players Available: Report

Krati Kashyap May 15, 2025 07:27 PM

As long as they are still in the running for the championship, all eight of the South African players that are headed to the World Test Championship (WTC) 2025 final are anticipated to be eligible for their respective teams. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Thursday, May 15, that players like Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen, among others, will not be returning to South Africa by May 25, as several Indian media outlets had previously claimed. Instead, they will play in the playoffs if their teams place in the top four at the conclusion of the IPL 2025 league stage on May 27.

“Indian cricket has flexed its muscle to overrule South African plans for the World Test Championship final, cutting down on preparation time for players like Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen ahead of their showdown with Australia by insisting they stay in India until the end of the IPL,” according to the SMH report.

The CSA Director of Cricket said that the squad would start training on June 3 after initially stating that its WTC 2025 final-bound players should return from the IPL by May 25. The team will begin WTC final preparations on May 26.

“We are sticking to our original plan when it comes to WTC preparations, with May 26 being the latest for the Test guys to come back,” CSA’s director of cricket Enoch Nkwe said tonight. “We have made it clear, and we are finalizing it with the IPL and the BCCI.”

However, a few hours later, Nkwe clarified and recognized that discussions between CSA, the BCCI, and IPL franchisees were taking place at executive and board levels, much beyond his rank.

“The team will start training again for the game on June 3rd,” he said. “The topic is being debated at a higher level than I am. We are concentrating on getting ready for the WTC final at the ground level.

According to the most recent information, players like Ryan Rickelton, Corbin Bosch, Tristan Stubbs, Lungi Ngidi, Aiden Markram, and Gerald Coetzee, in addition to Rabada and Jansen, will play in the last week of the 2025 Indian Premier League and may even reach London only one week before the start of the WTC final.

Prior to the WTC final versus Australia at Lord’s, South Africa was supposed to play Zimbabwe in a warm-up match; however, the dates of that match are probably going to be changed.