Cricket News: SA20 announces prize money of over USD 4 million for inaugural season

The SA20 league in South Africa will have a prize pool of 70 million Rand for its initial season (upwards of USD 4 million). This is "the largest prize fund in the history of South African franchise cricket," according to a CSA media release.

Graeme Smith, the SA20 commissioner, said,

"We have worked hard to offer a rewarding and unprecedented incentive in the first season of Betway SA20. This is a first for South African cricket, we have never had this type of competitive incentive in our domestic cricket and it is a further indication of SA20's ambitions to positively impact South African cricket."

From January 10, when MI Cape Town and Paarl Royals square off at Newlands in Cape Town for the opening game, until February 11, when the final is held at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, the tournament will be played.

In just over a month, 33 games-two round-robin leagues, two semifinals, and the championship-will be contested around South Africa. Smith has already expressed his hope that the SA20 will provide

South African cricket with the same pool of players that the IPL has provided for Indian cricket.

"I think what we want to create in this league is that there's so much talent - hope we can develop that talent to play under pressure on a global stage,"

he had said at an event in Mumbai earlier this month.

"I know I keep talking about the IPL but you look at the amount of strong cricketers that have come through in the IPL.

"Looking at trying to find 15 players, hopefully there's 25-35 players in the next couple of years at a level where it makes the selectors jobs very, very difficult. Those that are used to playing big games, exposed to big games. Unfortunately South Africa has to deal with these questions all the time until they actually win a [global] tournament."

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