SA20 will need more time before it can add teams

The SA20 has almost become a victim of its own success with Graeme Smith wary of how to manage its growth as calls for it to expand grow louder.

The league’s fourth season finished in Cape Town on Sunday with the most competitive final in that brief history playing out in the shadow of Table Mountain. The Sunrisers Eastern Cape claimed the title for the third time.

This season’s tournament was the primary cricket content of the summer, with Cricket SA’s failure to secure home Test matches.

It certainly created a more elevated stage and calls, whether on social media or in the stands, for new teams to be added have become more energetic and louder.

“We get approached by outside investors who are keen (to create another team),” Smith, the league’s commissioner, said on Tuesday.

By the time the play-offs rolled around, seeing signs with “Royals Challengers Bloemfontein” written on them had become a regular feature at matches.

However there are a number of factors which make expansion beyond the current six teams extremely complicated. Arguably the most significant challenge is time.

“The tournament is 34 games and the window is very squashed already. Players are playing almost back-to-back with travel days. It is an intense five weeks,” said Smith.

“If we had more time — an extra week for instance — we would be able to manoeuvre some of the thinking around the playoffs. Logistically it is almost impossible right now.

“If you want to add new teams, then the window will have to be extended. It’s hard because it is not entirely in my hands; we would love an extra week.

“The ideal window is 36 to 40 days - you can give players a rest. It would also help to manoeuvre the playoff games. Unfortunately the schedules are so tight.”

During this year’s tournament, players and coaches questioned why playoff matches were happening at grounds with the home team not playing. All four playoff games this year were at “neutral” venues.

“If you have a longer window, you can figure out some of these things. If you just take the last round-robin game, Paarl and Joburg Super Kings, that match decided 2nd and 4th place.

“Then you have one day before the first playoff game. SuperSport would kill us because they’d have to de-rig and move OB vans not knowing where they have to go (if the playoff venues weren’t pre-determined).”

It’s unlikely to get any easier, with Cricket SA currently in the midst of structuring the next set of fixtures for the international window after 2027.

“We will work with CSA to understand how we will fit into the cycle going forward,” said Smith.

With four centuries scored, two hat-tricks taken, one super over match and the final going down to the last over, Smith felt that this year’s tournament was the best to date.

“It was a fantastic season from a cricket perspective,” he said.

The quality of pitches remains a concern, though the improvement seen at Newlands, which two years ago was sanctioned by the ICC because of a poorly prepared pitch for a Test with India, was pleasing.

The Wanderers was the most concerning.

“There is a lot of pressure on groundsmen and lots of eyeballs on them. We struggled the most at the Wanderers this year, where the pitches have been very overused and dry.”

Though the “Bullring”, one of the candidates to host the 2027 World Cup final, had the super over match — where the Joburg Super Kings and Durban Super Giants scored 205 — it also hosted a game in which the Pretoria Capitals slipped to 7/5. Players on both sides complained about the surface for the final qualifier last Friday, in which shot-making was extremely difficult.

“CSA is undertaking a programme post the current season with drop-in pitches. In the build-up to 2027, it is obviously very important to have the right quality of groundsman and to get the right equipment to get the surfaces up to standard,” said Smith.