CSA bosses vow to professionalise women’s cricket soon

Cricket South Africa (CSA) has promised to take an “aggressive” approach to professionalising women’s cricket and setting up a female wing of the SA20 soon.

This after the Proteas’ heroic display in the T20 Women’s World Cup where they came close to clinching the trophy on home soil, but fell short, losing to Australia by 19 runs in the final at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town on Sunday.  

It was the first time a South African senior national cricket men's or women's team reached a World Cup final.  

There is a sentiment the Momentum Proteas could have done better if they had a strong and professional domestic set-up to prepare them for international cricket.  

Speaking at the team's arrival in Johannesburg from Cape Town on Wednesday, CSA director of cricket Enoch Nkwe and the federation’s CEO Pholetsi Moseki said local women will hopefully play domestic cricket as professionals in the near future rather than as semi-professionals.   

“We are going to go aggressive on domestic professionalisation of the game and if it can happen in the next few months that would be great. To be realistic, we are pushing for the next 12 months,” Nkwe said.  

“I wouldn’t say this coming season but next because there’s a lot logistically that we need to put together.  

“From an SA20 point of view, we know there have been talks. I’m not 100% sure but hopefully it will happen in the next 12 months. Those talks are in the pipeline, we just don’t know when it will happen.  

“We’ve seen with the men's SA20 [in January and February] that it was well organised in a short period of time and successful. When the opportunity presents itself [for a women's version] we need to make sure we are ready.”  

Moseki said plans to launch a women's SA20 depend on the federation having enough talented players, which is not the case now.  

“We can’t start the SA20 [for women] until cricket services tells us we have enough players in the structure,” Moseki said.  

“The first part is professionalising the semi-pros. We hope it can happen as soon as possible.  

“Immediately they tell us we have enough players to create even four teams, all of us, including SA20, will be ready to implement.  

“We have been consistent when we launched 10 months ago, we said the next step should be SA20 for women. 

“As soon as Enock tells us his team has enough of a pool, we will launch.” 

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