South Africa's Domestic Season To Start In 1st Week Of November

Cricket South Africa (CSA) has announced the fixtures for the three revised franchise competitions for the 2020/21 season as well as the senior provincial fixtures for both men and women.

As announced previously, the franchises will play a T20 competition in addition to the One-Day Cup and the CSA Four-Day Franchise Series following the decision to postpone the Mzansi Super League due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"We are pleased that no matches have been reduced despite the late start to the season," said CSA Acting Chief Executive Kugandrie Govender in a statement.

The franchise season will start in the first week of November while provincial cricket for both men and women will start at the beginning of January.

Both the four-day series and the One-Day Cup will have the six competing teams divided into two pools of three teams each. They will play a double round of fixtures against teams in their own pool and a single round of cross-pool matches.

As a result, each franchise will play a minimum of seven matches and these will be followed by a five-day final at the conclusion of the four-day series contested by the two teams topping its respective pool.

In the One-Day Cup after the conclusion of the preliminary round, teams ending first and second in each pool will contest a cross-pool semi-final each with the respective winners progressing through to the final.

The T20 competition will be played over a single round (five matches) with the top two teams qualifying for the final.

"I cannot stress enough the importance of our domestic system and the important role it plays in our talent development pipeline for the Proteas. One only has to look at the number of players who made successful international debuts in the three formats last season," said Govender.