SA20 is the biggest South African cricket competition. With 6 teams vying it out in this Twenty20 tournament each year, all cricket lovers’ eyes – including non-South Africans – are watching. It is the perfect place to showcase South African talent.
Let’s have a quick look at why SA20 is so exciting to watch, and why it might allow South African players to be showcased on the global stage.
The History of SA20
SA20’s life started when the T20 Global League started in 2017. Well, sort of. The T20 Global League didn’t properly launch until 2018 when it became known as the Mzansi League. It was dead by 2019. Well, it was dead by 2021, but it didn’t run for two years thanks to COVID-19.
The death of the Mzansi Global League led to the birth of SA20, developed by the Africa Cricket Development Limited, SuperSport, and a few other investors. South African Cricket wanted this tournament to be a success.
In July 2022, a planned One Day International against Australia was cancelled to ensure all quality South African players would be competing in SA20. In February 2024, a planned two-Test tour in New Zealand went ahead, but the team selectors only sent players with no test experience to compete. Again, this ensured the best players would stay back in South Africa, helping to build up the SA20 tournament — and it worked.
The SA20 Is the Best Stage for South African Talent
After many attempts to create a T20 league that works, the SA20 was a success. Well, at least for the few years it has been running. There are several reasons for this.
For starters, it was made clear that the best players in South Africa would always compete in the SA20. If any international games were planned during the SA20 tournament, the best players wouldn’t go to them. This did have a huge impact on sports betting on cricket for a while since gamblers never knew what sort of team would turn out at these international games since the players were unproven.
The fact that all the best players were back in South Africa for SA20 meant the league would always be showcasing the best talent. Any player worth their salt would be competing. We won’t lie and say that South Africa has the best cricket players in the world — but we will tell you the talent we’ve seen during SA20 has been sublime. We are glued to the screen.
The fact that this is a T20 tournament with not a whole lot of games helps too — it is very watchable and it has also been broadcast in many places around the world. People are being introduced to South African cricket when otherwise they may have skipped watching.
We don’t think any other South African cricket tournament achieved this sort of international viewership before. Sky Sports was so impressed with the viewership the tournament got they opted for a five-year contract in the UK to continue showcasing South African talent.
The Future of SA20
We are still only in the first couple of years of SA20, but it is clear that the tournament is much more successful than anything South Africa Cricket has put together before. For starters, it attracts sponsors and broadcast deals, and the players genuinely seem to enjoy playing in it.
Each year, the prize fund for SA20 has been considerably bumped up too, which indicates the competition organisers want teams to perform at their best. They don’t want second-rate teams. Instead, they want South Africa’s top players to compete — and it seems to be working. If there is a good cricket player in South Africa, you can bet your bottom dollar they will be out there, hoping to win the SA20.
So, the future for SA20 looks promising. It provides teams in South Africa with a great platform to showcase their talent. The tournament helps players who might otherwise have been ignored succeed on the international stage while drawing attention to South African cricket talent beyond international games.
In our opinion, SA20 is one of the best things to happen to South African cricket for an incredibly long time, and we hope that the competition keeps getting bigger and securing more broadcast deals — the country and its players deserve it.