Final may be dropped

[Wanderer]

Following many complaints over the current format of the franchise competition, (4-day SuperSport Series) Cricket S A will be considering a proposal to do away with the final at their board meeting today. In the past the competition consisted of 11 teams in 2 pools, and thus the reason for a final. For the past 2 years of course, we had the franchise system, with only 6 teams.

The proposal now is that all the sides will play five home matches and five away matches, so they each will have played each other home and away. Thus no particular side has been favoured and the team with the most points at the end of it all should be the champions. No final.

I for one believe that this is for the best. Not nice to share the cup or lose it in one game, when you played the best cricket throughout the season...

[admin]

This is a sensible move and falls into line with domestic competitions in other countries. To finish the season off with a bang (or whimper) the top side could play a combined team from the other clubs. That could be a money-raiser or it could be a marketing embarrassment as we saw when Australia played the Rest of the World.

[Vrock]

I totally agree with the decision, the four day game's merits should be based upon how a team does over the course of a whole season as opposed to one single game to determine a winner.

OD cricket really, IMO, should always finish with a knock-out section at Domestic Level (Quarter finals onwards at least). The World Cup is decided with a knock out stage to determine the best from the best. And I feel that teams who get knocked out earlier can then prepare for First Class games much better.

[Wanderer]

Decision has (finally!) been made...The SS series final has been dropped. First class competition will now be 2 rounds of matches, and at the end of it all, the top team will be crowned champions.

[adamberry]

Seems a sensible decision, I mean you could be world-beaters all the way though and then have a nightmare game in the final which doesn't do the side justice. Well done to Cricket SA.

[Wanderer]

Yep..Or you could end up being the top team throughout the series, and then because of the weather or whatever during the "final", you end up sharing the trophy (Dolphins, 2 years in a row).

[gibbs_fan]

I think that dropping the final is a good idea but it saddens me that none of the supersport series games are even shown on tv. At least the final was shown on tv but now I guess the whole competition will not get television coverage. Why are the matches not shown on tv. I am a die hard cricket supporter and I enjoyed watching the supersport series. How can supporters get to know the up and coming talent if we only see one day cricket.

[Wanderer]

Well, like with so many other things in the world, it's all about the money.

In the past, (way past) we used to have ALL the games on public broadcaster, remember?. Now the pay-channels have taken over (bought) the rights to these games. Remember when this issue came up some time ago? The public broadcaster said they just do not have the financial resources to outbid the pay-channel...

And of course, with the pay-channels having all the broadcasting rights, even they can decide which games they will show and not. For instance, there is 1 dedicated cricket channel, and about 2 "spares". But with the amount of international cricket played worldwide (sometimes 3 series' at a time), they probably feel like rather showing the international mathes than the SS games.

Maybe with the final having been done away with, (and people like us shouting out) they'll reconsider? And then again there is the "small" matter of match attendance figures...