CSA T20 league to have six teams instead of eight

Cricket South Africa’s yet-to-be-named flagship T20 tournament will consist of six teams, two fewer than the Global T20 League (GLT20) was due to have, and the same as the current number of domestic franchises. CSA’s board approved the number of teams on Saturday, CEO Thabang Moroe revealed, but it has not yet decided where those teams will be based.

Interested members from the 12 provincial affiliates will need to bid for a team in the new tournament. CSA have appointed independent analytics agency Nielsen Sports to conduct research and present a proposal to the CSA board recommending which six teams to include in the tournament, which Moroe said will likely consist of 32 matches to be played in November and December this year.

“There will be certain criteria applied by Nielsen which will involve monies, the ability to pull crowds, infrastructure around you and governmental support. The process will be independent,” Moroe said at a press conference in Johannesburg.

That new format will therefore be dissimilar to the current domestic competition, the Ram Slam, which will also be played in the 2018-19 summer. The Ram Slam is contested between the existing franchises, who each have two home stadiums, thus ensuring the competition is taken all across the country. The new competition is unlikely to have similar reach with the big stadiums – The Wanderers, SuperSport Park, Newlands, Kingsmead, St George’s Park and Mangaung Oval – the frontrunners for a flagship tournament.

No other details about the new league have been finalised but Moroe provide an assurance that his office is hard at work. “The league continues as far as planning is concerned. We have continued to meet with the broadcasters and with corporates for sponsorship opportunities,” Moroe said. “But we are not as far as we would like to be in terms of sponsorship.”

Neither has CSA managed to sort out the issues that arose from the previous team owners’ unhappiness, so much so that three of the eight threatened to take legal action against CSA. Moroe will travel to Dubai and Mumbai between August 8 and 12 to meet with the previous owners to “discuss the future of the league and the future of Cricket South Africa.”

ESPNcricinfo understands that Hiren Bhanu, owner of the Pretoria Mavericks who had offered CSA US$70 million over 11 years to buy the league, will attend the meetings in Mumbai. Bhanu remains hopeful of securing an equity share in the new league.

So do the owners of the Durban Qalanders, Nelson Mandela Bay Stars and Bloem City Blazers, who all issued press releases in June confirming they reserved their rights as owners and wished to be reinstated. With the tournament now having shrunk from eight to six teams, it will be impossible for CSA to hold on to all the former owners, and Moroe did not elaborate on how the organisation plans to solve this new dilemma.