Happily, CSA is now seeing the bigger picture

It is a rare thing to come across an entirely new sport but, like London buses, this week I came across two. The first was chennis – a combination of chess and tennis – in which I am happy to report I have never been beaten.

(Okay, I have just played one match).

It seems entirely fitting that I was introduced to the sport – in which you play tennis and the winner of each point then gets to make a move on a chess board set up where the net would be – by the makers of an energy tonic famed for providing physical and mental vitality, and much beloved by latenight swotters, especially in my youth.

The second sport I chanced upon on the internet: spon is a game in which the object is to kick plastic bottle lids into a goal. No, I have not tried it yet.

There was a third thing I came across this week that is probably much rarer still and that is all the players of a South African sport standing together and forcing their mother body to bend to their wishes.

But that is how the Sunfoil Series four-day domestic cricket competition was saved from being an abomination to rank alongside Super Rugby in terms of tournament integrity.

I have been told I am now considered “anti-league”, i.e. against the new T20 Global League, in certain quarters. But I am certainly not opposed to the league, especially if it is the financial success Cricket South Africa (CSA) say it will be and it keeps more players in this country. I am, however, very concerned by how it seems to be squashing our domestic cricket, like some giant alien craft landing and destroying everything beneath it.

There are worrying parallels at the moment to how the Indian Premier League arrived on our shores for one season, causing massive damage, as well as to how the Big Bash League in Australia has seriously wounded their domestic cricket, leading to the Australian team having some of the worst results they have suffered in many years; and it apparently is still not even making a profit. No wonder there has been an ugly strike in Australian cricket this year.

The scheduling of the T20 Global League for the height of the season in November/December meant that domestic cricket had to be put on the back-burner for those six weeks. That meant trying to fit everything into a window that has already been stretched from September to April.

CSA’s solution was to cut the Sunfoil Series to eight rounds, meaning teams would not play every other team, home and away, leading to the sort of imbalances that are making a farce of Super Rugby. CSA doesn’t seem to fully appreciate that the public judges them mostly on the performance of the Proteas in Tests and ODIs, and the quality of our domestic structures feeds directly into that.

The players were rightly dumbfounded that what they consider the premier competition in domestic cricket could be treated so dismissively, and fortunately they have a powerful negotiating tool in their possession in the form of the South African Cricketers’ Association (Saca).

Happily, CSA have seen the light after Saca expressed their unhappiness and the Sunfoil Series has been restored to the full 10 rounds. It all just comes down to them not focusing all their attention on the riches of the T20 Global League; at the moment it seems domestic cricket and the local franchises are very low down their list of priorities.

We must remember that what the T20 Global League is really about is growing OUR game, with benefits hopefully filtering down to all levels; it must not be about a select few enjoying the lion’s share of the profits.

Of course, the investors must gain worthwhile reward, but CSA were about to downgrade their most important domestic competition, so a reminder of their priorities certainly seems appropriate.