Pollard is one run short of 15,000 T20 runs, and he has pulled out of the SA20 after taking the MI job
Kieron Pollard will not play for Joburg Super Kings in SA20 2027, a day after Mumbai Indians made him their head coach.
Oct 26, 2026
“He has conveyed to us that he will not be able to play for Joburg Super Kings,” Kasi Viswanathan, CEO of the Super Kings franchises, said. “We will now look for a replacement.”
JSK bought Pollard for R1.5 million (about US$90,000) at the SA20 auction earlier this month. He went for his base price, and nobody bid against them. According to ESPNcricinfo, they are free to sign his replacement from outside the auction pool.
Super Kings, Mumbai Indians and a conflict nobody wanted
The timing explains most of it. Mumbai Indians promoted Pollard from batting coach to head coach on Saturday, replacing Mahela Jayawardene for IPL 2027. JSK belong to the same group as Chennai Super Kings, and MI’s owners have their own SA20 side in MI Cape Town. Had he stayed, the new MI head coach would have spent January playing for a CSK-owned team against an MI one.
MI say they did not push him. “It’s up to KP on the matter. We have given no instructions,” a franchise source told Cricbuzz.
There is an awkward twist in how he ended up at JSK at all. Pollard played 12 games for MI Cape Town across the 2024 and 2025-26 seasons, scoring 207 runs at a strike rate of 171.07. MI Cape Town then let him go into the auction and did not bid for him, spending the same R1.5 million on Shimron Hetmyer instead.
Stuck on 14,999
The decision also leaves a personal milestone hanging. Pollard has 14,999 runs in T20 cricket. His last innings was 10 for Trinbago Knight Riders against Guyana Amazon Warriors in Providence on 11 September. It left him one short of 15,000, and he did not get there before TKR, the defending champions, finished bottom of the table.
Jos Buttler got there first, reaching 15,000 exactly in England’s T20I against Sri Lanka in Cardiff on 17 September. Pollard can still be the second man to the mark. He is 39 and still plays franchise cricket, so the run will come. It just will not come in a Joburg Super Kings shirt.
The MI job comes first
He will be busy anyway. IPL franchises have to lodge their retention lists by 15 November, and the auction is expected in Goa on 16 December. The fifth SA20 season runs from 17 January to 21 February 2027, by which time Pollard’s squad for IPL 2027 will be largely set.
JSK now have a hole in a squad they thought was finished. MI have a head coach who chose the dugout over one more summer in South Africa, and his first job is a retention list.