Global T20 replacement plan revealed

JOHANNESBURG: The mad scramble to sort out the domestic cricket calendar in the wake of the T20 Global League’s postponement, will leave a two week ‘hole’ in the summer schedule, with the domestic CSA T20 Challenge, as predicted, moving from March 2018 to November 2017.

The six-team T20 Challenge, which is still without a sponsor, is scheduled to start on November 10, a week later than the T20 Global League was supposed to start.

With the current round of Sunfoil Series fixtures ending this Thursday, it means there will be a fortnight, where there will be no professional franchise cricket taking place.

The T20GL fell apart amidst controversy over the failure to secure a lucrative-enough deal to broadcast the competition, which has led to Cricket SA launching an investigation to get to the bottom of how that happened while also interrogating its administrative oversight mechanisms.

In order to ensure there was content at a major point of the season, CSA moved the T20 Challenge originally scheduled for March and April next year to November, with the final due to take place on December 16 – the same days which was scheduled for the T20GL final.

In addition the competition’s structure will also change; no longer will there be a single play-off match before the final – between the teams that finished second and third on the log – instead the top four teams will qualify for semifinals.

It is understood that the same rules regarding the number of overseas players that applied for the competition in previous seasons will be utilised again, with only two allowed (which include players on Kolpak contracts) per starting team.

All the national team players will be available for their franchises.

Three sets of double-headers have also been fixed to the schedule for Centurion (November 12), Newlands (November 26) and St Georges Park (December 3)

The 2017/18 season will now end with the fourth Test against Australia at the Wanderers on April 3.