Johannesburg — The presence of local players with regional knowledge will be essential, not just for player strategy, but also in building brand consciousness for the six teams in the new SA20 competition.
That opinion was shared by coaches who will be attached to the six teams, and will be a part of the strategy at the player auction that will be held in Cape Town on Monday.
“You want to maximise that home ground advantage, and local players with knowledge of conditions will be crucial in creating that,” said Adrian Birrell, who is part of the coaching staff at the Sunrisers Eastern Cape franchise.
Eric Simons, part of the management of the Joburg Super Kings, went a step further. “It is important to have that knowledge of local conditions, but also to have local players the fans in that city can relate to. Building the brand identity is important,” said Simons, who has been part of the Super Kings franchise in the IPL for over a decade.
One concern for Cricket SA is how quickly supporters will embrace their local team, all of whom are owned by IPL franchises. It is one thing to have big names, but in the case of the Joburg Super Kings, for many South Africans it may be confusing to have Faf du Plessis, who is from Pretoria and then later led the Paarl Rocks team to success in the Mzansi Super League, as captain and take him to heart.
Provincial favouritism still exists in South Africa and seeing the likes of Kagiso Rabada from Johannesburg, playing for the Cape Town franchise in the new competition is going to take a lot of getting used to. The same goes for Aiden Markram, who is from Pretoria but will be playing in Gqeberha and Anrich Nortje, who is from Gqeberha but will be playing for Pretoria.
“There is a lot of strategy involved in putting teams together, a lot of that is based around taking advantage of conditions. For that home ground to be truly an advantage, you want the fans invested in the team, and as a local player - say someone who has played a lot at the Wanderers - you naturally want to have success there and the fans will more easily embrace that player.”
The new Joburg Super Kings have rapidly sought to immerse themselves in the city’s consciousness with a snazzy video featuring images of the city, from the famous cricket stadium, to the Soweto Towers and Vilakazi Street all with the dulcet tones of Du Plessis reminding viewers and Joburg residents why the team will playing their hardest for them.
“Loyalty and cohesion have been the hallmarks of CSK over the years I have been with the franchise,’ said Simons. “It is important, initially, to try and build that cohesion within the squad which can be a challenge because a lot of these players represent different teams. But always with CSK, we’ve managed to create that family-like feel and to have players who want to play for the uniform.”
The SA20 features six teams, based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Gqeberha, Centurion and Paarl.
The competition is viewed as essential to the future of the sport in South Africa with the investment from Indian owners and SuperSport, totalling almost $240-million, having been made already.