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OPINION: India may hold the key to the success of CSA’s new T20 competition

Cricket South Africa are set to have a third crack at launching a franchise T20 competition to attract global interest.

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Cricket South Africa are set to have a third crack at launching a franchise T20 competition to attract global interest.

Two women looking excitedly at cellphone

CSA’s speculation is set to come with a hefty price tag and success is by no means guaranteed even if there are now a number of successful leagues set up around the world.

The key to really unlocking the earning potential of a T20 league comes in attracting interest from the lucrative Indian TV market.

India has competing media titans, hungry for more T20 cricket to thrust upon 2 billion eyeballs, but they won’t act if interest is low.

Generating interest from India is so vital that Cricket South Africa would do well to negotiate an arrangement with the BCCI that would see prominent Indian players be available to play in this tournament.

While such a move might not be essential to success, it would certainly provide any such tournament with a massive boost.

The BCCI rarely grants NOCs for players to compete overseas, usually limiting them to stints in County Cricket.

India’s top players are hot media properties and there is also a large group of players in the country looking to make a case to step up into the international arena, another group who could attract significant interest in a T20 tournament.

There are a lot of things CSA needs to square away just to get this tournament off the ground, and each step is fraught with potential disaster if they get the slightest thing wrong.

CSA must renegotiate a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the player’s union SACA. And the details of that arrangement might affect overseas participation.

As things stand each team is set to be able to draft four overseas players for the tournament, but that number does seem awfully low, especially if only two or three can play in a match.

This tournament will live and die by the interest it generates and CSA must do all they can to maximise the buzz.

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