Dewald Brevis has become the most expensive player in the SA20 history. Pretoria Capitals signed him for an eye-watering R16.5 million, which is about Rs 8.31 crore. No player would earn more than him in the 2025-26
season, the fourth of the fast-growing competition in one of the traditional centres of the sport.
The league price record was beaten minutes before Brevis came to the table when Durban’s Super Giants signed senior batter Aiden Markram for R14 million. But even before the ink could dry, the Capitals and Joburg Super Kings’ explosively aggressive bids for Brevis made it clear that Markram’s record stood no chance.
JSK, which is a sister franchise of Chennai Super Kings in the IPL, went till R16.4 million for Brevis, which was most of their R21.5 million budget. Their thought process would have been simple: Brevis was extremely impressive when he played for CSK as a replacement player in the most recent season, scoring 225 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 180.
Interestingly, at CSK, he was an injury replacement for Gurjapneet Singh and earned a salary of Rs 3 crore. At SA20, which is a shorter, and newer league than IPL, his income has been more than doubled.
Further, if reports are to be believed, Pretoria Capitals’ IPL associate team, the Delhi Capitals, also tried to sign Brevis as a replacement player during the 2025 season, but Brevis gave preference to CSK. Now, Pretoria head coach Sourav Ganguly would be delighted to turn the tables on CSK here.
“I hope he does well,” Ganguly was quoted as saying by SA20. “I think he is a tremendous talent. His game has really progressed over the last one and a half year, as we saw against Australia. On that tour, he showed he is a game-changer, and that’s exactly what you need in T20 cricket. We have Russell, Rutherford, who can really step it up, and I hope Brevis does the same. I never associate performance with money. Leaving aside the R 16.5 million, I believe he is a fantastic talent. He plays spin very well, which is extremely important, and taking everything into account, that’s why he went for that price.”
Brevis’ idol, AB de Villiers, had called it a masterclass from MS Dhoni’s franchise to get the special Protea talent, when not many were trusting his consistency due to a few months of patchy form.
Having worked on a few things in December 2024, Brevis has been in stellar form this year, starting with the CSA 4-Day Series Division 1 tournament. He has also played five ODIs in 2025, scoring 104 runs at a strike-rate of 182.4 and 313 runs in eight T20Is, striking at 196.8, with a best score of 125.
