The Mzansi Super League (MSL) was a

Twenty20 cricket 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 inning ...

(T20) franchise league held in South Africa. The competition was established in 2018 by

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) as a replacement for the failed T20 Global League, but only two editions were played before the competition was itself cancelled in favour of the SA20 competition from 2022/23. The

first edition The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants. First edition According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...

of the tournament took place in November and December 2018. The

South African Broadcasting Corporation The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the public broadcaster in South Africa, and provides 19 radio stations ( AM/ FM) as well as six television broadcasts to the general public. It is one of the largest of South Africa's state ...

broadcast all matches domestically on free-to-air channels. The league consisted of six franchise teams representing different South African cities. Two editions were played under this format before changes were proposed to reflect the wide structural changes that were announced for South African domestic cricket in 2021, but the competition did not run in 2020 or 2021 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 ...

and was then cancelled.

Format

League structure

Each team played each other twice in a home-and-away round-robin format in the league phase. At the conclusion of the league stage, the top three teams qualified for the playoffs, with the team that topped the table after the league phase progressing to the final as the home side and the second and third placed teams played against each other in a play-off match, with the winner advancing to the final.

Player draft

Franchises acquired players by means of a player draft. A series of marquee players from the South African national team were drafted first, and teams could also select one international marquee player. After these picks, teams were allocated fourteen picks each with player salaries determined by the round in which they were selected.

Teams

Six franchise teams representing different South African cities competed in the competition. These sides were loosely affiliated with the six franchise teams that played First Class and List-A cricket in the domestic circuit. The sides were: *

Tshwane Spartans Tshwane Spartans were a city-based franchise team of the South African Mzansi Super League (MSL) Twenty20 cricket tournament. The team was based at SuperSport Park in Centurion. Tshwane Spartans played in the first two editions of the MLS in 2018 ...

* Jozi Stars *

Nelson Mandela Bay Giants Nelson Mandela Bay Giants were a franchise team of the South African Mzansi Super League Twenty20 cricket tournament. The team were based at the St George's Park Cricket Ground in Port Elizabeth. Nelson Mandela Bay Giants played in the first tw ...

Durban Heat Durban Heat were a franchise team of the South African Mzansi Super League (MSL) Twenty20 cricket tournament. The team were based at the Kingsmead Cricket Ground in Durban. Durban Heat played in the first two editions of the MLS in 2018 Mzansi Su ...

Cape Town Blitz Cape Town Blitz were a franchise team of the South African Mzansi Super League (MSL) Twenty20 cricket tournament. The team was based at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town. Cape Town Blitz played in the first two editions of the MLS in 2018 ...

Paarl Rocks Paarl (; Afrikaans: ; derived from ''Parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a town with 112,045 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the third-oldest city and European settlement in the Republic of South Africa (after ...

League season and results

References

{{Twenty20 leagues Cricket leagues in South Africa Twenty20 cricket leagues 2018 establishments in South Africa Recurring sporting events established in 2018 Professional cricket leagues