- SA20 League commissioner Graeme Smith said the tournament’s semi-final structure was left unchanged lest its integrity be called into question.
- The top two teams, Pretoria Capitals and Joburg Super Kings, will play their semi-finals at Wanderers and SuperSport Park at Centurion, respectively.
- Smith said they don’t have any expansion plans in the works, but added that a game would be added to next year’s schedule.
SA20 League commissioner Graeme Smith said the tournament’s current semi-final structure was kept intact to maintain its integrity, despite the fact that the top two teams will play their semi-finals at ‘away’ venues.
The Pretoria Capitals will play their semi-final at Wanderers on Wednesday, while the Joburg Super Kings will play their semi-final at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Thursday.
The Pretoria Capitals closed out the round-robin stage against the Paarl Royals on Tuesday and were uncatchable at the top of the league table, guaranteeing them a place in the play-offs.
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Smith said the league not only took over for the semifinals, but teams assured him they were happy with the way the play-off scenarios played out.
Play-off venues were announced early, with Newlands, Boland Park and St George’s Park unavailable due to the Women’s T20 World Cup which starts on Friday.
“The league takes over running the knockout games, although the franchises run the round-robin games,” Smith said.
“The league takes charge of protecting the integrity of playoff games to manage bias and pitch modification.
“Ours is to make sure that the standard of the qualifiers is at a high level, and you will see the brand become the final.
“Also, we don’t have access to three of the venues due to the T20 Women’s World Cup, which is why the league played most of the early game on the coast and finished in the highveld.
“We don’t have that restriction next year, but this year, we needed to be fair to all the teams and stick with the decision we made.
If we change it now, it would be an unnecessary bias against the other teams that have qualified, but we made this decision for the right reasons.
“The teams have also been fair in not wanting any favoritism at this stage of the tournament.”
With the tournament already a visible success, expanding the league would always be on everyone’s lips, but Smith said the current six-team structure will be in place for the next five years.
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Smith, however, said the tournament would have an additional game next year, which will come in the form of a slight extension to the play-offs similar to the Indian Premier League format.
The IPL’s knockout format sees the top teams playing in a qualifier where the winner goes straight to the final.
The loser plays in the second heat, where they face the winner of the first heat between the third and fourth teams.
Smith said the idea of the winning team getting the hosting rights for the following year’s final was brought up, but it will be played by ear as all six courses will be available for the duration of the tournament.
“We’re bringing up the playoff because we didn’t have the proper logistics this year. I guess having six teams made the semis a lot easier,” Smith said.
“We think it’s a much more competitive knockout, but we still need to get feedback from the franchises where we review things.
“We will have to think about giving the final to the team that wins this year and how we distribute the knockout matches next year.
“Next year, we’ll have access to all six sites, and luckily for this week, the sites are not far from each other.”
