The SA20, South Africa’s first-ever domestic T20 League, led by Commissioner Graeme Smith, is anything but traditional. Keeping on with its reputation, the tournament has just announced six non-traditional awards and complementing non-traditional methods of formulating said awards.
The inaugural season of the premier domestic T20 league will culminate this Saturday with the final scheduled for Wanderers Stadium. But before that, the top four teams will battle it out in the two semi-finals on Wednesday and Thursday.
New awards also include a unique ‘Groundsman of the Season’
Other than the title and the prize money, SA20 has announced six unique Individual awards to be bestowed on stand-outs in different sectors of the game. These awards include the Player of the Season, Batter of the Season, Bowler of the Season, 2023 Rising Star, Spirit of Cricket and Groundsman of the Season.
The Player of the Season, which is synonymous with its counterpart from football competitions, is a first-of-its-kind award aimed at honouring the player with the best overall contribution in all departments of the game.
Similarly, the Batter of the Season award will not be decided in the traditional way of accounting which batter scored the most runs, but instead, the player highest ranked in batting points wins. Similarly, the Bowler of the Season will have his bowling points considered.
The Rising Star award will be open to players under the age of 25 as of 10 January 2023. They will be filtered from the overall MVP list consisting of batting, bowling, fielding, captaincy, player of the match awards and being on the winning team.
The Spirit of Cricket award will be decided based on a vote by the tournament match referees and umpires. It will account for areas like “the spirit of the game, respect to the opposition, respect to umpires and respect for laws of the game.”
Last but not least, the Groundsman of the Season award will go to the groundsman who prepared the best pitch of the tournament. Notably, match referees are required to award “scores post-game on the quality of the pitch and outfield conditions and its suitability of the T20 format” to decide for this unique first-of-its-kind award.
