Cricket Australia has confirmed that Mitch Marsh and Matt Short will not receive No Objection Certificates until they have completed all of their BBL|16 responsibilities. Neither player will be allowed to travel to South Africa for the SA20 until the Perth Scorchers and Adelaide Strikers have finished their respective campaigns.
The development comes after it was revealed that Marsh and Short, the captain of Australia’s men’s T20I team, have been signed as marquee players for the forthcoming SA20 season. Marsh will play for Sunrisers Eastern Cape, while Short will play for Pretoria Capitals. Both Australians will be participating in the South African competition for the first time. Notably, the same organization that manages Marsh’s Hundred team, Sunrisers Leeds, also owns his SA20 team.
When will Marsh and Short be able to actually join their SA20 teams?
On January 17, 2027, the SA20 begins the nite after Adelaide Strikers host Perth Scorchers in the BBL|16 regular season’s final round. The Sunrisers Eastern Cape and Pretoria Capitals are drawn to play each other in that very first game, which takes place in Gqeberha, a location that normally requires at least 20 hours of travel from Adelaide over numerous connecting flights, adding to the scheduling complication.
Only if their teams are eliminated prior to the finals, which are set for January 19–26, would both players be eligible for that first game. Marsh will remain with Perth until the end of the season, regardless of the tournament’s stage, according to a Perth Scorchers representative. Short is committed to the Strikers thru 2028, while Marsh inked a three-year agreement with the current BBL champions in 2025, keeping him with them until the end of BBL|17.
After finishing their BBL responsibilities, Tim David, Marcus Stoinis, Matthew Wade, Ashton Turner, and Mitch Owen have all represented SA20 teams in previous seasons, setting a clear precedence for this kind of sequential release.
How do Marsh and Short perform in these consecutive contests?
Marsh has a lot of momentum when he comes. His 360 runs and Finn Allen’s 466 runs, which led the competition, helped the Scorchers win a record-extending sixth men’s crown in the previous BBL season. After that, he scored 563 runs at an average of 43 for the Lucknow Super Giants in the Indian Premier League. Since then, he has scored 290 runs in five innings for Sunrisers Leeds in the Hundred, despite an injury that ended his T20 World Cup campaign.
In all formats, Short has been equally prolific. He scored 60 not out and 71 in consecutive innings for Welsh Fire in the Hundred. Prior to that, he finished his Major League Cricket season with San Francisco in spectacular manner, scoring 121 not out in the playoffs and 94 not out in the regular season.
