Graeme Smith, the former South African captain and the newly appointed commissioner of the CSA T20 league, has said that in the modern day and age of cricket, it’s very important for every cricket board to sustain itself and one of the key aspects of sustaining itself is to have a T20 league of its own.
According to Graeme Smith, a T20 league is not important for the cricket board just for the sake of generating revenue, but the difference that it makes to the grassroots and the frequency at which it unearths high-class young cricketers is also very important.
Traditionally in the history of the game, it’s England and Australia who have been sustaining their home seasons every year, making sure that the big teams and the big players keep visiting them during their peak summer, so that they generate revenue and their first-class structure also gets enhanced on a regular basis.
But, the emergence of IPL has changed that scene in the last decade or so, as IPL has now become the tournament that grabs the most number of eyeballs in the world and it has left every tournament behind by quite some margin in terms of viewership. The mass IPL viewership recently resulted in a gigantic IPL media rights deal worth more than 6 billion USD.
Now, the scenario of world cricket has changed to an extent where CSA has withdrawn from the ODI series which they had to play on Australian soil in January next year so that all their top players are available for their own T20 league.
Graeme Smith on SA pulling out of AUS series : "We offered a number of solutions for it, which didn't work for Cricket Australia. I think there could be no solution found for the offers that CSA made." (TOI)
— Dr. Cric Point 🏏 (@drcricpoint) August 3, 2022
We need to look up to BCCI and learn from them: Graeme Smith
Graeme Smith, who was recently speaking to the Times of India in an exclusive interview, said that it’s very important for him and CSA to look at BCCI and observe how they have created such a product that has changed the entire landscape of the game in the last decade.
Graeme Smith said, "there's alot to learn from the BCCI. Relations with India are going to be key to the success of our new T20 League". (To TOI).
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) August 3, 2022
Smith also expressed happiness about the fact that all the six teams in the CSA league are under the ownership of IPL franchises, as strong ownership is vital for the sustenance of any league in the world.
