By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Betway SA20 League Commissioner Graeme Smith has expressed his resounding satisfaction with Season 4 of the competition.
Since its inception in 2023, the tournament has grown into one of the most popular sport series in the country.
However, the potential of expanding the number of teams in the league beyond six could not be considered until the 2028 campaign, due to an agreement with the Indian Premier League (IPL) teams which owned the franchises.
“We saw a lot of exciting games, super overs, hundreds, hat-tricks. I would say from a cricket perspective, it is absolutely the best-ever Betway SA20 season,” Smith said.
“I thought the cricket really stood out for me this year. We saw a lot of players put their hands up with some incredible performances.”
Betway SA20 Season 4 had been preceded by a mega auction, which Smith believes played a major role in the final playoff participant only being decided on the last day of the group stages.
“I think the standard of cricket and the equally competitive nature of all teams was important,” he said.
“I certainly felt like when we called up the regulations and forced a big auction, we knew it was time. We thought it was important.
“Franchises had learned for three years and the marketplace in South Africa had shifted from before we even started. The players were in different places and had been performing differently.
“But just seeing the intensity of the players, and how much it means to them. I think those things show you that we’re building something that is really meaningful in South African cricket.”
Smith also emphasised the growth of the competition is best illustrated in Pretoria Capitals’ Dewald Brevis maturing from a Rising Star into a Player of the Final and the League unearthing yet another prodigy in Paarl Royals’ Nqobani Mokoena.
“It was great to see him (Brevis), find form and figure out a few things throughout the tournament. And at crunch times, really performed well for his team,” Smith said.
“I was speaking to someone that’s very much an old school traditionalist of the game. And he said that it was one of the best hundreds he’d ever seen in all formats. It speaks volumes to the quality that Dewald has.
“We always, by nature, want to focus on the youngsters and there’s a few of them that are coming through. In particular, Mokoena, out of nowhere, really putting his name in lights this year, I think that was one of my highlights. But it’s also about the development of these players.
“If you think since season one, the Breetzkes, the Stubbs, the Brevis’ and so on, have really gone from strength to strength over the three or four seasons.”