South Africa’s cricket landscape is set to change when a proposal to introduce two new franchises in an expanded eight-team set-up is debated by Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Wednesday.

A recommendation by a committee headed by Professor Kader Asmal is likely to be accepted and Border and Griqualand West will go it alone next season. It will mean the dissolution of two unhappy cricketing marriages.

Border and Eastern Province have been uncomfortable bedfellows, with wrangling about where the Warriors’ headquarters should be.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Warriors and Eastern Province chief executive Dave Emslie. “It has been difficult to manage a relationship when the partners are 300km apart.”

Because of a dispute over control, Griquas initially refused to join the Central franchise with Free State when it was launched in 2003/04. When they did join two seasons later it was an uneasy alliance.

The biggest concern is that standards might be diluted. Both new teams would have to recruit players.

One of the main reasons for launching franchises was to improve standards and make the step up from domestic to international cricket easier.

Griquas president Ahmed Jinnah is confident his players will be up to the challenge. “This province deserves this opportunity. A lot of people have worked hard, going back to the likes of Des Schonegevel and Mike Doherty. We have brought through a lot of youngsters and our development programme is excellent. Our players deserve a shot at the big time.”

Griquas have been the most successful team in four seasons of amateur provincial cricket, twice winning the first-class competition, while the facilities in Kimberley are of such a high quality that the Proteas had their training camp there last week. They also have long-term sponsors in De Beers.

Border’s record in the provincial competition is less compelling. Last season they finished fifth out of seven in their pools in both the first-class and one-day leagues.

Chief executive Themba Lupuwana said one of his key strategies, provided Border are awarded a franchise, will be to encourage players originally from the area to return. “When the Warriors franchise moved to Port Elizabeth we lost players to Eastern Province and Western Province. I don’t believe our results reflect our potential.”

Cricket is firmly entrenched as a sport for black people in the Eastern Cape. “There is a strong cricket culture across all races,” said Lupuwana.

The review committee was given criteria which had to be met. These were that any changes should improve the standard of cricket, be financially viable and sustainable, should cover the whole of South Africa and adhere to the transformation policies of CSA.

Franchise cricket on its own is barely sustainable, despite the success of the Standard Bank Pro20. There has been talk of expanding the Pro20 to as many as 16 teams, including non-franchise provinces and other African countries.

The cost of staging additional first- class games will be considerable but CSA is in a strong financial situation through television deals and its partnerships with India and Australia in the Champions League Twenty20 and the potential of a new southern hemisphere Twenty20 competition.

Colin Bryden

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.