Betway SA20 League Commissioner Graeme Smith has expressed his resounding satisfaction with Season 4 of the competition, which was highlighted by record crowds, spectacular cricket performances and a festive excitement around the country which lasted until the final run at a sold-out at Newlands on Sunday.
The fourth edition concluded in gripping fashion with Sunrisers Eastern Cape winning a third championship title in four seasons when they edged out Pretoria Capitals in a last-over finish.
The Boxing Day start to Season 4 brought a unique festive spirit to the competition and the players responded with some thrilling cricket on the pitch.
The League saw four individual centuries for the first time in a season, with MI Cape Town opener Ryan Rickelton striking two glorious hundreds.
Pretoria Capitals’ Shai Hope smashed the best-ever score in Betway SA20 history when he stroked an unbeaten 118 not out against Durban’s Super Giants at Kingsmead before his teammate Dewald Brevis produced an innings for the ages with a century in the Newlands final.
It was not just the batters that provided the entertainment, with the bowlers also getting into the act with two hat-tricks.
Capitals’ seamer Lungi Ngidi earned the distinction of claiming the first-ever Betway SA20 hat-trick before Paarl Royals paceman Ottneil Baartman followed enroute to claiming the only five-wicket haul of Season 4.
In the true festive spirit Betway SA20 kept on giving when Season 4 also provided the competition’s maiden Super Over, after Joburg Super Kings and Durban’s Super Giants played to an exciting tie at the Wanderers.
'INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCES'
“We saw a lot of exciting games, super overs, hundreds, hat-tricks. I would say from a cricket perspective, it is absolutely the best-ever Betway SA20 season,” Smith said.
“I thought the cricket really stood out for me this year. We saw a lot of players put their hands up with some incredible performances.”
Betway SA20 Season 4 had been preceded by a mega auction, which Smith believes played a major role in the final playoff participant only being decided on the last day of the group stages.
“I think the standard of cricket and the equally competitive nature of all teams was important,” he said.
“I certainly felt like when we called up the regulations and forced a big auction, we knew it was time. We thought it was important.
“Franchises had learned for three years and the marketplace in South Africa had shifted from before we even started. The players were in different places and had been performing differently.
“But just seeing the intensity of the players, and how much it means to them. I think those things show you that we're building something that is really meaningful in South African cricket.”
Smith also emphasised the growth of the competition is best illustrated in Pretoria Capitals’ Dewald Brevis maturing from a Rising Star into a Player of the Final and the league unearthing yet another prodigy in Paarl Royals’ Nqobani Mokoena.
“It was great to see him (Brevis), find form and figure out a few things throughout the tournament. And at crunch times, really performed well for his team,” Smith said.
“I was speaking to someone that's very much an old school traditionalist of the game. And he said that it was one of the best hundreds he'd ever seen in all formats. It speaks volumes to the quality that Dewald has.
“We always, by nature, want to focus on the youngsters and there are a few of them that are coming through. In particular, Mokoena, out of nowhere, really putting his name in lights this year, I think that was one of my highlights. But it's also about the development of these players.
“If you think since season one, the Breetzkes, the Stubbs, the Brevis’ and so on, have really gone from strength to strength over the three or four seasons.
“I just think it's because the platform has got big. And if you perform here, you get noticed.”