The SA20 is gearing up for its fourth season with the auction on September 9. The tournament will kick off on December 26 as South African fans wait in anticipation. Meanwhile, SA20’s commissioner, Graeme Smith, wants the league to become the second biggest outside the IPL.
SA20 commissioner Graeme Smith wants SA20 to become the biggest league in the Southern hemisphere and the second biggest outside the Indian Premier League, as he feels happy with the decisions taken by the organisers during its four-year presence.ย
The SA20 has become a pretty popular league with cricket fans hooked to the tournament. Many renowned cricketers across the globe flock to South Africa to ply their trade in the T20 tournament. The SA20 has the second-highest salary cap after the Indian cash-rich league of R41 million.ย
The SA20 is gearing up for the fourth season, with the new edition kicking off on December 26. The first season was played in 2022, with Sunrisers Eastern Cape winning the title. Smith explained that they planned to start well and had set big ambitions. “When we started, we were built up against the ILT20 and Big Bash and we set ourselves big ambitions upfront,” Smith told as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.ย
“In the southern hemisphere window, we want to dominate, and we want to be the biggest league outside the IPL. Three years in, we’ve set the standard. Every decision we make is around making sure that we uphold those standards. I expect there will be a top number of leagues that will elevate themselves in a calendar cycle, and that will be the priority for players, investors and fans. Our ambitions are to remain right at the top of that alongside IPL,” he added.
Recently, Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg said that the BBL would ‘unashamedly’ chase the number two spot with the privatisation of the teams, a move that The Hundred took with six out of eight teams finalised. “It’s going to be very hard to chase the IPL, given the scale of cricket in India, but unashamedly, we want to run a league that comes second,” Greenberg told SEN radio.
“And to do that, we’re going to need to make sure that player availability and player salaries are commensurate with everything else that goes on around the world, and there’s one thing you need for that: you need money, you need investment. We’d be naive if we weren’t asking ourselves these questions and making sure we’ve got an eye on what’s next,” he added.
The BBL and SA20 clash with each other as they are played during the same window. However, Smith was unfazed by that too, highlighting that the BBL is played during Australia’s international summer; however, the Proteas players prioritise their franchise tournament even at the expense of international cricket.
South Africa had sent a second-string team to New Zealand for a Test series last year due to the SA20. “Everyone was worried that we were going to destroy Test cricket, but we’ve seen our national team go on a few years later to win the World Test Championship final. We’ve all played our role in the ecosystem,” he said. “We’ve been part of bringing gravitas back to South African cricket, seeing new fans come back to the game and new energy,” he said.
The SA20 will begin on December 26. The player auctions are on September 9, while the player registration closes on August 18.