Cape Town - After easily the most turbulent period in the history of South African cricket, the embattled organisation have found a semblance of stability under new chief executive Pholetsi Moseki and are arguably looking ahead to the "Summer of Cricket" with the launch of the inaugural SA20 League, the ICC Women’s T20 Cup and ICC Under-19 Women's World Cup.
IOL Sport's Zaahier Adams sat down with Moseki ahead of the 2022/23 season.
Q1. The SA20 auction was recently held in Cape Town. Were you happy that it achieved its objectives?
I was happy with the auction. Considering the amount time everyone had, which was very limited, I am glad the logistics went well.
Q2. All six franchises are owned by Indian Premier League consortiums. Would you have liked to see a couple being South African owned?
To be honest when we started we wanted a number of international teams. When I say international, it did not necessarily mean IPL. But we were hoping to have one or two South Africa entities. The proposals though from the IPL teams were just too compelling and they are global brands and ultimately we are happy to have them on board. It would have been nice to have one or two South African-owned entities.
Q3. Proteas T20 captain Temba Bavuma's omission from all six SA20 franchises caused quite an uproar. Should the SA20 have implemented transformation targets?
It was intentional for us not to have transformation targets. But to be honest I don't think anyone of us expected to see such a low number of (black African) players (signed). We thought we had done quite a lot work done in the last few years that it would not be necessary for this tournament. We will continue to have transformation targets for domestic cricket because it is part of our long term plan.
But for this tournament we believed our system was mature enough, and had the players that could be chosen. But the fact that we only have seven black African players selected is not something we expected. We definitely expected that far more players would have been signed. Do we feel like we made a mistake?
I don't think so, but clearly there is plenty of work we need to do an organisation to get cricket where we want it to be. This is a long term process and hopefully in years to come it will be reflected better naturally because nobody signs Sisanda Magala because he is a black player. He was signed because he does well in the domestic system. So, hopefully in three years time we have so many players that do get signed and it doesn't become an issue of lack of transformation. It definitely was sobering for us because clearly there is a lot for us to work on.
Q4. Transformation targets have been in place for 23 years though already. Is it fair to suggest that it hasn't been successful in producing high quality black African cricketers?
I think it's unfair to say that. I think there have been a lot of players that have come through the system. Has it been enough? Clearly not! We can see that in our own national team that Temba is the only black African batter who is established in the Proteas which is something we can't be proud of. There is clearly still a lot of work to do. I would be very sad in five years time when my contract ends that we still discussing the same issue.
Q5. Were the SA20 teams not interested in implementing transformation targets?
It was never on the table. If you remember the GLT20 also did not have transformation targets. But clearly we needed to engage more with them even if it was in the background. Maybe we have not explained our country's dynamics enough. However, I don't want players chosen only because they are black African. The guys have given me statistics and I could see that there are lot of players that would feel it is unfair what happened.
Q6. Is it your duty or the SA20 League Commissioner Graeme Smith's to explain the importance of transformation in the South African context?
I think it's is all our jobs to basically explain those dynamics.
Q7. Do you think the scenario would have been different if there was a franchise that had a black African owner, for example a Patrice Motsepe?
We were really hoping to have one or two black-owned franchises. If it was a Motsepe for example it would have been brilliant. He was definitely someone we would have like to work with. It would have helped if we had proudly South African owners because they would have understood our dynamics even better. But we are happy that we have the IPL owners because their money will be reinvested in our and development programs because these things happen in parallel.
Q8. Does the buck stop with you in attempting to attract black-owned businesses to South African cricket?
I don't only want to convince black-owned businesses. I want to convince all businesses. For me black-owned businesses are key because it would be a completely different environment for them and quite exciting. Sunfoil is still the only black-owned business investing in South African cricket. Cricket is the one sport that has a very diverse spectator base and it would be really good if that diversity also had an impact on our sponsorship.
Q9. Is it true that the SA20 television rights have been bundled with Cricket SA's bilateral rights in order to attract an overseas bidder?
I think that's totally incorrect. The bilateral rights expired in 2024 with Star. We have had plenty of interest with major organizations but they all wanted an opportunity to bid for bilateral rights. There were two or three big entities in India that wanted to bid for SA20 but it was not conditional they get the bilateral too. It was however something they saw as nice to own all the properties in South Africa. So it was about bidding for both.
Q10. Cricket SA's lifeblood is its broadcast rights. Are you not putting the organisation's long-term livelihood at risk by bundling it all together with the SA20?
"Broadcast rights are the lifeblood of our organization. We sent a single invite to tender, but when they bid, they will be bidding for each properties separately. Bilateral series are owned 100% by South Africa but the league has minority shareholders. It would have been a disaster to have one single submission for both properties. For us, we had to decide that bilaterals still have a year to go, do we go to the market now? Or do we just chill a bit? We felt that's its not a bad idea to go to the market now because the major properties have been sold already and the third one is the BCCI, so it's the perfect time to go to the market. They will never be bidding for joint rights. Each bid will be separate and the terms are different with bilaterals for seven years and the league for 10 years.
Q11. On to lighter things, how excited are you that SA will be hosting two major ICC women's events within the space of a month?
It's crazy. We keep saying it's a massive vote of confidence for us, but it's definitely not a cliche. When we also got the U19 World Cup as well, then literally a month later we hosting the Women's T20World Cup, builds on this journey in terms of the one we are on with Women's cricket. For us as a organization, we started the journey years ago when we were among the first federations to give fulltime contracts to women. At start of this financial year we have extended it to 40 contracted players. In the past we only had 15, now we have 40 including semi-pros.
Q12. Do you think South Africa has the capacity to absorb the SA20, ICC Women’s T20 World Cup and the ICC u19 Women's World Cup?
Absolutely. It's the summer of cricket. We don't have any content in December because the Men's team will be in Australia. But from January we want to own summer.
IOL Sport