Cricket South Africa’s T20 League started taking some semblance of shape on Thursday when St George’s Park was named as one of six venues to host the tournament starting in November.
Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg (Wanderers), Centurion (SuperSport Park), Durban (Kingsmead), Cape Town (Newlands) and Paarl (Boland Park) will host six new, yet-tobe-announced franchises.
This means Bloemfontein misses out on the deal with the Western Cape being awarded two franchises.
Originally called the T20 Global League, the tournament was scrapped just weeks before it was due to be launched and unwanted publicity has dogged it ever since.
Cricket SA is now hopeful the public will buy into its down-scaled version and also that a group of the original and aggrieved T20 Global League owners, who feel they still have rights to the franchises, will not go through with their threat to obtain an interdict to stop the tournament from happening.
The new version will consist of six teams with a mooted 16 players each. All the sides will have a marquee player plus four overseas stars.
The tournament was slated to start on November 9, with the final scheduled for December 16, but those dates could change when Cricket SA makes a series of announcements from early next week.
Also to be revealed next week are the team names, when the player draft will take place, names of marquee players and management of the franchises. A title sponsor is also yet to be named.
EP and Warriors chief executive Mark Williams confirmed on Thursday that the PE-based franchise had a high-profile coach coming in from outside.
“We are waiting for formal announcements in terms of details, but next week will be a busy week for us with the revealing of the names of the team and so on,” Williams said.
“From our side there are a few things we are looking at.
“I’m hoping to reveal a coach for the team. He is likely to bring significant credibility to the team. We are still finalising a few details around that.
“Our current Warriors coaching structure will remain in place, but the Warriors have a campaign to run this season and it’s important that we don’t take our focus off that.
“That’s why we are bringing some extra firepower in.”
Explaining the workings of the deal, Williams said: “Simplistically, Nelson Mandela Bay and St George’s Park has been offered the hosting rights for a CSA-owned team.
“CSA will fund the players. We were then offered the management rights of that team which will be at our cost.
“We will have our own localised feel and look.”
Williams realises the new product needs some aggressive marketing to get people to buy into it again.
“I know there has been big disappointment but critically for us at St George’s, we have a three-year contract to host this.
“This event gets pitched internationally, which means it’s funded accordingly.
“We will have a big push with the public to market it.
Cricket SA CEO Thabang Moroe said a specialist firm had determined which cities would host the tournament.
“The buzz phrase for the independent assessment [which formed part of a stadium grading process of first-class venues] was the ‘fan journey’, he said.
“[It] starts with the fans’ arrival at the stadium and includes the full package of transport options, both to and from the stadium, and traffic management‚ ease of access‚ safety and security arrangements‚ catering‚ and interaction activities and opportunities specific to the fan experience.”