Moroe in bid to save T20 league

NOW NEW CSA CHIEF IS OUT TO MEND FENCES

Thabang Moroe, now confirmed as the permanent top dog at Cricket South Africa (CSA), confirmed his desire yesterday for the Global T20 League to commence this year and said he would be ramping up communications with the disgruntled team owners, escalating from emails to face-to-face meetings.

Having announced last month that they were teaming up with SuperSport to relaunch the league, CSA faced a furious reaction from the franchise holders announced last year, with several of them threatening legal action should they be excluded from any T20 competition that subsequently sees the light of day.

But Moroe said at CSA headquarters, in his first press conference since his appointment as permanent CEO, that they still wanted to involve the “previous” team-owners.

“We want to deliver the GLT20 this year and we are building up equity and going ahead with expressions of interest. But we are still talking with the old owners about a possible relationship, I’ve been in communication with the owners in writing, but now we are trying to get a date when we can all sit together.

“We are really struggling to meet and that is the only way to bridge the issues of trust we have. There should be some meetings in the next two weeks, I will be meeting some of them in Dubai and the rest in Mumbai. My task was to revive the GLT20 and I tried to do that in its purest form, but it was very difficult,” Moroe said.

He added a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was all but signed between CSA and the players’ association, while ensuring that the women’s national team produces top-class performances in a view to gaining equality with the men. This is a particular preoccupation for the man who succeeded Haroon Lorgat in an acting capacity last September.

“The MoU will be signed any moment now, we’re just cleaning up semantics, the principles of how the money will be shared are all there. We have found each other, it’s 99% done and Tony Irish (players association CEO) is happy with the process,” Moroe said.

The Proteas made their way back from Galle to Colombo yesterday to prepare for the second and last Test against Sri Lanka yesterday.

The Test starts on Friday at the Sinhalese Sports Club, a ground where the Proteas last won a Test 25 years ago before losing two and drawing two of their next four matches at the venue.