It is not just the imagination of the public that has been captured by the SA20, it is their bums that have been welcomed in great numbers on the seats and grass banks of the six host stadiums. The tournament organisers proudly announced the sale of the millionth ticket last week, which is a remarkable feat before the end of the third season.
The crowds and full houses are certainly the major selling point for sponsors and broadcasters — it is evidently an excellent product. But two other aspects of the SA20 have also, inadvertently, made it globally popular and have challenged two pieces of accepted, conventional wisdom about what makes franchise cricket “watchable”.
The first is SA’s pitches. Unlike the “formula” that is for T20 pitches to offer the barest assistance to bowlers of any sort, and to encourage aggressive stroke play and boundary-hitting, venues in SA refuse to be stripped of their identities. Cricket pitches are organic, after all, and some are far more reluctant to conform than others.
Such a situation enhances the importance of “home ground advantage” and makes it harder for teams to win on the road. It’s comforting to believe that home crowds cheering their team onwards is what makes the difference, but it’s a romantic notion. The number of players who are actually playing on their “home” ground is minimal.
The process starts at recruitment level, planning for the auction and then managing budgets to secure as many of the players best suited to home conditions as possible. There are obvious examples — spinners for the Paarl Royals being the most glaring — but it extends to the personality and style of batsmen, too.
Joe Root was a masterstroke for the Royals and has displayed even more genius than they may dared have hoped for in conditions as difficult for quick scoring as at any other major venue in the world. It is virtually impossible to “manufacture” boundaries without taking unacceptable risks at Boland Park, at least until the final few overs — and provided there are plenty of wickets in hand.
T20 batting at the jewel of Paarl requires an intimate knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses, an ability to restrain yourself from launching an attacking shot at many of the deliveries that would present as “scoring opportunities” at most other venues and, mostly, extreme patience. Those qualities only come with experience. There is also the mental battle with the counter-intuition that scores of 130 or 140 will be extremely competitive — a winning score more often than not.
The variety of conditions has also led to an extreme lack of another ingredient believed to be so important to the success of a franchise tournament: close finishes. There have been almost none, yet interest in the SA20 has not diminished. In fact, a consequence of impressively one-sided victories, from the very unscientific feedback available from friends and colleagues worldwide, has been an increase in interest rather than a decrease.
SA20 Commissioner Graeme Smith has said himself that it would have been “nice” to have a few more close matches in the first three weeks but he will, no doubt, be aware that he and his excellent team of strategists and marketeers bear some of the responsibility. They decided not just to include bonus points for heavy victories but to use them as the primary decider between teams finishing with the same number of points and victories on the final log.
With that level of incentive to win heavily, a single bonus point could make the difference between a place in the play-offs or elimination, there can surely be no regrets — or even surprise — that there have been so many thumpings. As a soccer loving colleague in India wrote last week: “Nobody’s complaining if your team wins 4-0 at home every Saturday and the league is decided by how many 1-0s you can pinch on the road.”
Two final thoughts: Root is the most compelling evidence possible of the value of international stars in the competition, not just because he’s winning games but because he loves sharing his knowledge and experience. But will the SA20 remain so beholden to having overseas players? Whisper it, but some are no better than local cricketers.
And what of cricket’s compulsion over the last 30 or 40 years to expand everything that makes money? ODI cricket is battling to survive because the market became saturated and Australia’s Big Bash had to back-pedal after becoming greedy and adding more games. Even the IPL’s hierarchy is having second thoughts about whether further expansion (once thought to be inevitable) would be overkill.
Much as the Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein would make a fine host and the centre of the country deserves to be invited to the party, maybe another of the SA20’s appeals is the size and brevity of the competition.
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