SA20 commissioner Graeme Smith admits the league’s Boxing Day start this season “comes with a few unknowns”.
The tournament begins two weeks earlier than usual after CSA was unable to secure a Boxing Day Test, with defending champions MI Cape Town opening the campaign against Durban’s Super Giants at Newlands.
“Being two weeks earlier comes with a few unknowns,” Smith told the Sunday Times.
Despite the absence of Test cricket over the festive period, Smith is confident the South African public will again embrace the SA20, pointing to encouraging early ticket sales.
“There is a lot of interest for SA20. The natural thing to do here is to blame SA20 for there being no international cricket, but that is not the case.”
Smith explained that a congested international calendar influenced the scheduling, including South Africa’s tour of India that only ended on 19 December, the Ashes, New Zealand’s commitments against the West Indies and the start of a new World Test Championship cycle.
“We sat with CSA before season three [of SA20] – and worked out the calendar cycles for the next three years. You might always get painted with a certain brush, people like to put Test cricket up against T20s, but I think people are excited for SA20.”
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The commissioner also addressed broader concerns around SuperSport’s involvement in the league following Canal+’s acquisition of MultiChoice, stressing that there are no immediate concerns.
“Whenever there are transitions or changes, everyone wonders what will be different,” Smith said. “SuperSport has been such a key role player in sport in SA, from an investment perspective and product delivery. I think when [there is uncertainty] for such an integral role player in sport, you will naturally be nervous. But in our engagements so far, we haven’t seen any red flags with SuperSport.
“The Canal team is coming to some of the matches in January,” he added. “From our perspective, nothing has really changed in terms of the delivery of the product.”
Photo: Alet Pretorius/Sportzpics
