CSA left in ‘difficult’ spot over SA20 clash with Proteas tour says Smith

Graeme Smith acknowledged that Cricket SA found itself in a difficult position as it seeks to balance the need to build the SA20 tournament while ensuring the integrity of the Proteas men’s team. 

Smith, as commissioner of the glitzy SA20 tournament that helped revitalise local cricket earlier this year, on Tuesday released the fixtures for the 2024 competition, which will coincide directly with a two-match Proteas Test tour to New Zealand. 

The final week of the SA20, which includes an extended playoff schedule, will take place at the same time as the first Test against New Zealand, which starts on February 4. The second Test starts on February 13, three days after the SA20 final. 

“It’s very difficult — we are engaging consistently with [Cricket SA CEO] Pholetsi [Moseki] and his team on that,” Smith said at the SA20 event in Bryanston.

“Our goal at SA20 is to elevate and focus on what we control. Ultimately that is to make sure that our event is the best. It’s been clear from the start with how things were created and structured that our job is to engage as early as possible and set our small window of a month, and things go from there. We will keep engaging and see where things end up.”

Cricket SA is the majority shareholder in the company that owns the SA20. Moseki has said that the tournament is a priority for the organisation describing it as “a non-negotiable” for CSA.

He remains hopeful CSA can agree to move the two-Test series with New Zealand, which forms part of the 2023-25 ICC Test Championship cycle, to another spot on the calendar, though New Zealand cricket authorities have made it clear they won’t change the schedule. 

With the majority of the Proteas’ Test players and even likely second stringers contracted to the six teams in the SA20, there is a strong likelihood that a severely weakened Test squad will head to New Zealand.

“Pholetsi has been quite clear [about CSA’s position]. From our side, to see the clash is not ideal, but again we can only focus on what we can control, which is to deliver the best four weeks of competition and then hopefully leave the rest to CSA to figure out,” Smith said.

The launch of the SA20 last year meant CSA cancelled a one-day series against Australia to ensure all the Proteas were available for the new tournament, putting the team’s automatic qualification for this year’s World Cup in jeopardy. 

The second edition of the SA20 will start on January 10, three days after the second Test against India is scheduled to finish at Newlands. 

The tournament will start in Gqeberha, where defending champions, the Sunrisers Eastern Cape, will face the Joburg Super Kings. By the end of the first week, all six teams would have played at least one home game, a significant shift from the first edition where the tournament was forced to play the majority of its opening half at the coast because of the Women’s T20 World Cup. 

“What we want is for each venue to bring itself to life again and have its own characteristic and vibe.” 

The addition of an extra knockout game mimics what happens in the IPL. The top two teams at the end of the round robin phase will face each other in “Qualifier 1”, with the winning team going straight through to the final.

The losers from that match will get a second bite, by playing the winners of the “Eliminator” clash between the teams that finish third and fourth on the log.

“It does amplify the need to get to one and two, to give yourself an extra opportunity,” Smith said.