SA 20 is a

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...

franchise

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

tournament to be played in South Africa in early 2023. The first edition is scheduled to feature six teams based in South African cities. In August 2022, the league was formally named the SA 20.

Graeme Smith Graeme Craig Smith (born 1 February 1981) is a South African cricket commentator and former cricketer who played for South Africa in all formats. In 2003, he was appointed captain of the national team, taking over from Shaun Pollock. He held th ...

is the commisioner of this championship.

History

Cricket South Africa Cricket South Africa (CSA) is the governing body for both professional and amateur cricket in South Africa. In 1991, the separate South African Cricket Union and the South African Cricket Board merged to form the United Cricket Board of South Afr ...

(CSA) established the franchise

T20 Global League The Mzansi Super League (MSL) was a Twenty20 cricket (T20) franchise league held in South Africa. The competition was established in 2018 by Cricket South Africa (CSA) as a replacement for the failed T20 Global League, but only two editions wer ...

in 2017. The inaugural season was deferred by a year due to the lack of a broadcast deal and title sponsor and in June 2018 was replaced by the

Mzansi Super League The Mzansi Super League (MSL) was a Twenty20 cricket (T20) franchise league held in South Africa. The competition was established in 2018 by Cricket South Africa (CSA) as a replacement for the failed T20 Global League, but only two editions wer ...

, a league featuring six CSA-owned teams. Both the leagues became unsuccessful. The MSL ran for only two seasons, the 2020 and 2021 editions being cancelled due to the

COVID 19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. SA20 was established by CSA in 2022 through a newly formed entity, Africa Cricket Development (Pty) Limited (ACD). CSA is the majority stakeholder in ACD with a 50% share, while broadcaster SuperSport has a 30% share and former

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...

(IPL) Chief Operating Officer

Sundar Raman Sundar Raman is an Indian sports business professional. He is currently working with Reliance Industries Limited as its CEO - Sports. He was working for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and was the Chief Operating Officer of the ...

, the remaining 20%. All six of the teams were bought by franchises from the IPL. In July 2022, CSA announced that the

One Day International A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...

series against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

due to be played in January 2023 would be cancelled in order for SA20 to go ahead. In August 2022,

was announced as the commissioner for the tournament. Later in the month, the marquee players for the first season were announced.

Organisation

The six teams will play each other twice in the group stages of the competition before the top three sides move to the play-off stages. Teams acquire players through an auction as opposed to a draft, making it the second cricket league in the world after the

to do so. Each team purchases a squad of 17 players, with the opportunity of signing up to five players prior to the auction: three international players, one South African international player and one uncapped South African player.

Teams

The following teams and their owners were announced as taking part in the tournament:

Controversy

In July 2022, Hermis Sports Ventures Limited, the owners of Pretoria Mavericks from the now defunct Global T20 League, wrote to CSA asking for a "reasonable opportunity," to submit an application to acquire a franchise in the new tournament, failing which they would consider applying to the courts to issue an interdict to stop the games from going ahead, based on the then CSA CEO Thabang Moroe's assurance that if in the future CSA starts a T20 league, the GLT20 franchise owners will be entitled to ownership of the teams in the new league. However, CSA is confident of seeing off the legal challenge.

References

External links

* {{Twenty20 leagues , state=collapsed Cricket in South Africa Twenty20 cricket leagues South African domestic cricket competitions Sports leagues established in 2022 Professional cricket leagues Cricket leagues in South Africa SA20