It has been an exhilarating two weeks of South Africa’s premier T20 franchise League, highlighted by world-class cricket, incredible crowds across the six stadiums and a special sprinkle of the summer festive cheer.
From a cricket point of view, the first half of the competition has featured extraordinary team and individual performances.
Game 16 at Kingsmead between hosts Durban’s Super Giants and Pretoria Capitals was a special night in the history of Betway SA20.
Capitals opener Shai Hope smashed an unbeaten 118 to surpass Kyle Verreynne’s 113 not out to become the holder of the highest individual score in Betway SA20 history.
Hope also joined MI Cape Town’s Ryan Rickelton as the two centurions of Season 4. Rickelton is the first batter to score two hundreds in a season and is top of the current run-scoring charts with 317 runs at a strike-rate of 172.28, including 24 sixes.
The excitement was not over yet at Kingsmead with Capitals’ seamer Lungi Ngidi etching his name into the record books when he claimed the League’s first hat-trick. Ngidi’s victims were David Wiese, Sunil Narine and Gerald Coetzee.
Season 4 has also seen Betway SA20 extend its global footprint with a number of players from a large variety of countries making an impact over the course of the first fortnight.
Royals’ bowlers, Ottneil Baartman and Sikandar Raza top the list with 11 wickets each, with Baartman having also passed the 50-wicket milestone in the process to join his former Sunrisers Eastern Cape teammate Marco Jansen as the only members of the exclusive club.
Off the field, the fans have brought the festive cheer, with the League recording the greatest number of sold out matches in the first half of the competition since inception. At the time of publication, 15 matches (including the Final) have been sold out, while there has been a 22 per cent increase in ticket sales across the first 15 matches in Season 3. The Final was again the best-seller, selling out in the least number of days compared to Season 3.
On screen the action has been just as incredible, with audience viewership on host broadcaster SuperSport and Indian broadcaster JioStar, peaking at impressivenumbers.
On SuperSport, Season 4’s opening fixture delivered a larger local linear audience than other major T20 leagues, outperforming the most recent IPL opening fixture by 59 per cent and the BBL by 118 per cent.
In India, JioStar’s linear channel Star Sports recorded the highest viewership for a Betway SA20 opening match, with the clash between MI Cape Town and Durban’s Super Giant’s witnessing a 23 per cent jump from Season 3.
Streaming platform JioHotstar has also had a 50 per cent increase in live video views.
The online fans have been as equally engaging with video views across all social media platforms up by 116 per cent compared to the same time in Season 3, with the audience growth already at 137 per cent.
The League’s partners have also been a key part of the action; with the fan favourite Betway Catch R2 million already delivering 8 spectacular one-handed catches while Absa has given away over R1 million to date to lucky fans at each of the stadiums with Switch also rewarding fans with a cash prize at every match.
Fans still have two weeks to guess the number of balls in the Suzuki Swift at stadiums and stand the chance to walk away with a brand-new car at the Final.
