It seems that Cricket South Africa has put all its eggs into promoting the national teams and the SA20 competition.
The CSA T20 Challenge final was battled out on Sunday, with the Warriors clinching a thrilling super over win over Boland to lift their first T20 trophy in 15 years, at Boland Park.
Did you watch it? Did you even know it was on? If the answer to these questions was no, don’t worry, you’re definitely not the only one.
Cricket South Africa seems to have unfortunately given up on properly promoting and trying to build any interest in their local competitions, which include the T20 Challenge, the Four-Day competition and the One-Day Cup.
All three of CSA’s flagship domestic competitions feature very little in-person support, with the teams playing in mostly empty stadiums, even in finals, as was seen in Paarl on Sunday in what is usually the most popular format for fans.
It seems that CSA has put all its eggs into promoting their national teams, the Proteas men and Proteas women, and the SA20 competition, which is a shame for regular local cricket.
Exciting T20 Challenge
This season’s CSA T20 Challenge was incredibly exciting, with the so-called smaller unions, Boland and the Warriors, dominating the tournament and then producing an exciting finale that would have lived up to the hype, if there was any.
But there wasn’t, with barely anyone knowing that it was even on, except for the die-hard supporters. CSA did very little, if anything, to drum up any interest.
There is very little media interaction when it comes to the local competitions, with the national federation sending out a pretty poorly written press release after playoff matches.
That sort of sums up the kind of effort they put into promoting their franchise cricket, which is disappointing for the fans, and the players as well.
The CSA Four-Day competition, which started before the T20 Challenge, now sees one more round to be battled out next week before the SA20 takes centre stage from the end of December.
The final few Four-Day games will be battled out in February, with the final scheduled between 18-21 February, while the One-Day Cup starts at the end of February, with the final scheduled for 29 March.
