Ken Borland

Boland and North-West are the two teams that will join the six franchise centres in the new eight-team provincial-based Division I that will be introduced as part of the restructuring of the domestic game, Cricket South Africa announced on Monday.

Eastern Province (Port Elizabeth), Free State (Bloemfontein), Central Gauteng Lions (Johannesburg), KwaZulu-Natal Coastal (Durban), Northerns (Centurion) and Western Province (Cape Town) will be the other teams in Division I, while Limpopo and Mpumalanga gain first-class status and join South-Western Districts, Easterns, Border, KZN Inland and Northern Cape in Division II. The new system features automatic promotion/relegation between the divisions, but this will only kick in after the 2022/23 season.

The changes are based on the recommendations of the independent task team chaired by former Protea and ICC chief executive David Richardson, who explained the reasons for the ‘promotion’ of Boland and North-West to the top table.

“Boland have a tremendous fan base, especially amongst the coloured community, and there is a true love for the game and cricket culture around Paarl. Their stadium is of very good quality and they are very ambitious. They have excellent development pathways and they have contributed several players to the franchise system, while their provincial team has done consistently well.

“North-West are well-administered, they have done some tremendous infrastructure development in Potchefstroom and the university provides them with a huge opportunity to attract, develop and retain players. What I like the most about the new system is that there is no room for complacency; one of the biggest challenges of the franchise system was that there were no consequences for finishing sixth,” Richardson said on Monday.

Dr Stavros Nicolaou, the chairman of the CSA Interim Board, said the directors were confident the new structure would result in a stronger Proteas team out on the park.

“The recommendations of the Dave Richardson task team have been fully supported and endorsed by the board. We need domestic cricket to be a springboard for international excellence, that was a key consideration. We believe the new structure will give us a cutting edge in terms of competitiveness and more sustainability. It will optimise our potential in terms of the development of players and talent,” Nicolaou said.

Andrew Breetzke, the CEO of SACA, said it was a relief that the players could now have some certainty and they could move on from the restructuring issue.

“There’s almost been restructuring fatigue in our offices because we have been speaking abut this for five years, we just needed to get it done and move on. The positive is that we now have some finality because the uncertainty is not good for the game. We respect CSA have the right to make changes to the structure, and we have had extensive consultations with them,” Breetzke said.

“The move has triggered a number of issues with our current Memorandum of Understanding in terms of contracting of players. And 75 players are now out of the system. The end of the franchises will require new contracts and different allocations, and if teams are relegated then there needs to be a way for players to exit their contract. We’ve been focused on the cricket imperatives.”

Richardson said they had learnt from the past when the number of teams in South Africa’s premier domestic competitions had almost doubled from five to nine during his playing days in the 1980s and 90s.

“We started with five sides in the A Section and then teams were added so we went to nine in quite a short space of time. But there was no relegation so the teams at the bottom lose enthusiasm and focus and it just brings the whole quality of the competition down. Now there is opportunity across the board, but it depends on how well you play.

“Having promotion/relegation is probably the biggest lesson we learned from the past. The teams coming up to Division I will face a huge challenge because they will not be used to playing such high-quality cricket, but hopefully they will be able to best equip themselves for that. What I like most about the new system is that there is no room for complacency,” Richardson said.