Professional and amateur cricket on collision course over T20

LIKE trains entering the same tunnel from opposite ends‚ cricket’s amateur and professional administrators seem to be on a collision course.

That tunnel is the future shape of South Africa’s premier T20 competition.

CSA’s professional arm‚ formed of employees tasked with running the game as a business‚ and the organisation’s members council‚ its highest authority and comprised of elected officials‚ differ on fundamental aspects of the tournament.

The professional arm is headed by acting chief executive Thabang Moroe and chief financial officer Naasei Appiah‚ who have formed a close alliance.

The members council is made up of the presidents of the 12 provincial affiliates and CSA’s president and vice-president.

It can only be a complicating factor that Moroe is also CSA’s vice-president‚ even though he and CSA president Chris Nenzani do not vote on members council matters.

The council met in Durban last weekend to consider a proposal for a T20 tournament prepared by the professional arm.

The document calls for eight franchises that would be owned by CSA‚ be subject to transformation rules – five black players in the XI‚ two of them black Africans – and limited to three foreign players per roster and two per team. The tournament would‚ the plan says‚ cost R180-million for three years and then make money.

The Durban deal features significant departures from the original blueprint for the event that was meant to catapult CSA into the international T20 circus last year – the failure of which has led to much of the above.

The T20 Global League (T20GL)‚ in which the franchises are privately owned‚ not beholden to transformation and strewn with foreign players‚ stalled weeks before its scheduled launch in November.

CSA pulled the plug, saying the venture would lose $25-million (R292-million) in its first year‚ not least because a broadcaster and sponsors had not been secured.

Officially the T20GL was postponed for a year. Unofficially, it is an open secret that it will never see the floodlights of day-night. According to a CSA release on February 3, a task team has been assembled – it includes Moroe and Appiah – and a workshop organised to “interrogate the concept”.

Two senior administrators denied the new plan had been rejected‚ saying it would form part of wider discussion.

Another high-ranking official said: “The council wanted other proposals.”

We will find out around March 31 which path CSA choose to follow.