The Global t20 League is going to start in the later quarter of the year. It recently unveiled the logo and the venue details.The logo was designed to visually position South Africa as the destination for global T20 cricket and draws on the colours of an African sunrise.
The eight successful Team Owners will be announced on June 19 in London alongside the eight allocated Marquee players announced previously. The process of applying to own and operate a team opened on February 4 with more than 150 expressions of interest that will be narrowed down to just eight.
The prime concern is to let Indian Players play for leagues but that is not permitted by BCCI. But CSA hopes that if Indian Players are included it would be a huge boost up to their marketing and popularity.
South Africa is taking up every challenge to make this league a huge hit all around the world.The former ICC CEO speaks about the league, how it will be merged in their home calendar and its other aspects:
On How the league will be in comparison to others:
All leagues are good, IPL is phenomenal, Big Bash is doing good, CPL also. But we have to recognise that we have got domestically some of the best players. If you look at the rankings of the players, we have got No 1 in batting, bowling. These players have never played each other in our own country. We are also attracting some of the best international players.
So what is different (that) we would like to have is the quality of cricket. We want to focus on the cricket first. If you look at the name of the league, if you look at the way we styled it, we are looking at a premier cricket competition and hopefully the best in the world. Alongside that, there will be entertainment. Not the other way. It’s not the entertainment and then cricket.
On The Corruption that may occur and what are the precautions taken beforehand:
So, hopefully, the starting point will be what we did when we picked it up two years ago. We certainly have a zero tolerance approach to it. We have brought all of those players to the book and the same we will apply (to) it — whether it’s in the T20 league or other domestic leagues in South Africa — we will certainly enhance our resources in the league.
We will also call upon the ICC to help us, which we have already done. So we will build our anti-corruption capacity to make sure we will monitor the league. We want a quality league and you can’t have a quality league if you haven’t got the checks and the balances.
On taking tips from Lalit Modi:
No, we have got people on board including myself who have got enough knowledge we believe; we have brought in the specialists (to help us out). We think the team that we have got has got the requisite expertise to deliver.
On CSA unable to host any ICC event until 2023:
Ever year there is an assessment and last year our assessment was not good and they (assessment committee) prevented us from hosting international events. This year, April was when the new report came up and it was all clear.
That sanction applied to a global event like the World Cup. So you remember the ICC announced all of these events for the cycle during that period, and in fact, I think it is more the big three took all the events. It wasn’t a question of we weren’t ready (sic), it was more the big three allocated the events for themselves.
That was during the period which wasn’t great for international cricket. It is critical to have those events as you can see the last time South Africa did anything worthwhile was in 2003 World Cup and therefore you could know it is now over ten years.
On the availability of Indian Players:
It goes without saying that if the Indian players were available to play in this league, it would escalate the profile of the league. The Indian fan would fall in love with it and they already love the South African players. There is a big following for the South African players in India. Add the Indian players to it, (and) you can see how much better that could be.