South African players to stay till IPL concludes, delay WTC final preparations: Report

South African players are expected to stay for the entirety of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, potentially impacting their World Test Championship Final preparations, reported ANI citing The Sydney Morning Herald.

South Africa is set to face Australia in the summit clash at Lord's in London from June 11. Meanwhile, IPL is scheduled to conclude on June 3, after a week long suspension due to escalated tensions between India and Pakistan.

The newspaper reported that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) allegedly leveraged its influence to ensure South African players' continued participation.


The BCCI suspended the league for a week due to cross-border tensions between India and Pakistan. After the 'stoppage in fire', the IPL is set to resume on May 17 with Royal Challengers Bengaluru hosting defending champions, Kolkata Knight Riders, at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

"One thing we've made clear, and we are finalising it with the IPL and the BCCI, is that 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, as quoted from The Sydney Morning Herald.

However, in just few hours, Nkwe took a U-turn, saying higher-level talks were happening between CSA, the BCCI, and IPL franchises, suggesting CSA had little choice in the matter.

"Correction - the squad will resume training for the game on June 3rd," he declared.

"The matter is being discussed higher up than me. At ground level, we are focusing on preps for the WTC final," he said.

CSA had earlier insisted that eight of their players would have to leave IPL by May 25 to prepare for the final.

However, players like Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen, Aiden Markram, Lungi Ngidi, and Tristan Stubbs may reach England just a week before the final, needing to switch from T20 mode to Test cricket quickly. South Africa's planned warm-up match against Zimbabwe on June 3 might also be affected.

For Australia, only Josh Inglis, and Mitchell Starc might be associated with IPL in the playoffs week. The rest, including Pat Cummins and Travis Head, will return to India briefly, but their team, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), is already out of the tournament.

Meanwhile, Australia is holding training camps in Brisbane and will prepare in London before the final begins on June 11. They won't play a practice match but will focus on match-style training.