Nominally known as the Rangers - some of the mooted names are already under copyright, says coach Vinnie Barnes - they will be based at Tukkies' High Performance Centre, play their home games at Willowmoore Park and include players surplus to requirements at the six other franchises. But there is a problem.

Rumour has it that unlike the six other teams, the competition's rules have been bent to allow the team four overseas pros rather than the other sides' two, although only three of the four can play at any one time.

Paul Collingwood, one of those pros, will captain the side, and Ryan ten Doeschate will be another of their professionals.

Is it fair, with a potentially lucrative Champions League place beckoning for the competition's two finalists, that one side have access to four professionals, while other teams can use only two, even if they are disadvantaged by being surplus to requirements elsewhere? Many think not.

There is an added whiff of skulduggery in that cricket's bush telegraph is humming with news that the Sahara group, or The New Age daily newspaper, are the sponsor of the seventh team.

No one could confirm this at CSA but the information has been verified by several other sources. It's a strange situation because the competition as a whole remains sponsorless; the seventh team, however, has a sponsor. Surely this is an inversion of what should be ?

The most important factor is for a competition sponsor and then a team sponsor. Maybe, though, no one wanted to be associated with the competition after Richard Glover's resignation last month signalled all was not well, commercially, at CSA.

Having a seventh team is by no means a bad idea. Whenever people in cricket talk about it they mention the Impalas, a composite side made up of B section players who campaigned in previous limited-over competitions.

Often, sides like this operate from a sharpened sense of grievance and do better than form and track record suggest they should. Being based at Willowmoore Park is another advantage. Teams hate the ground with a passion. And who are Willowmoore Park's stadium sponsors? Sahara, which all makes things cosy to the point of suspicion.

There were further problems this week when the official launch of the competition was postponed. Presumably this was at least because there were difficulties with dotting i's and crossing t's. Some people I spoke to also took issue with the fact that some of the original precepts that led to the establishment of a seventh team have been perverted.

The initial idea was for the team to provide good (but otherwise overlooked) cricketers with a T20 opportunity.

Take the case of the Lions' Richard Cameron. He, as I understand it, was not contracted by the Lions in the list of 15 names they submitted to CSA. But he has already played Champions League cricket and would be a good addition to the seventh team.

This might now not be the case when the Lions and the "Rangers" meet in Potch on Friday. He might just be sitting out because he was pushed out by privateers.