About Mzansi Super League
The Mzansi Super League is also known as MSL, it is one of the most popular Twenty20 cricket tournaments held in South Africa every year. It is similar to one of the top professional domestic cricket tournaments held in South Africa. It is broadcasted in South Africa along with other cricket-loving countries out there in the world. Cricket South Africa (CSA) which is responsible for professional, domestic and national cricket in South Africa is the administrator of this tournament. This tournament is held every year in the country, however in the last year due to COVID-19 pandemic, this tournament was cancelled by the administrator Cricket South Africa. Otherwise every year the CSA organizes this tournament and cricket players from all over the world along with South Africa take part
Foundation, Format & Teams
As we have mentioned that this tournament was created by Cricket South Africa and currently it is controlled by Cricket South Africa. CSA founded this tournament in 2018. The first edition of this tournament was held in November-December of 2018. The format is fixed for this tournament which is twenty20. The playing style and rules followed in this cricket tournament is home-and-away and round-robin. Matches are held in a round-robin format in the league stage. The top three teams are chosen and sent to the next round which is playoffs. Six teams participate in this cricket tournament and all of these teams represent cities or states of the country. Since the third season, there have been six teams participating in this tournament. But after the third edition, the organizers announced that there will be a total of 8 teams participating in this tournament. The participating teams of this cricket tournament are Cape Town Blitz, Durban Heat, Jozi Stars, Nelson Mandela Bay Giants, Paarl Rocks, Tshwane Spartans, TBD, etc. All these teams represent various cities, states or provinces of South Africa.
Sponsors
If we talk about early sponsors of this tournament then Global Sports Commerce (GSC) was the first official partner or sponsor of this tournament. Along with sponsor rights, Cricket South Africa also transferred commercial and broadcasting rights to the Global Sports Commerce. Due to delay in tournaments in the last year during the coronavirus pandemic, there was a hard time for the CSA to get new sponsors. But after a few months of talk with many sponsors, CSA secured the title sponsorship with Embattled Cricket SA. This tournament faced issues getting sponsors many times. Also, many Indian brands support Cricket Australia in the Mzansi Super League. There were already Indian sponsors in the list of sponsors for Mzansi Super League. But after a huge rise in Indian viewership of this cricket tournament, new Indian brands came up in support. Brands like Vimal, Cycle Pure Agarbathies, Kent RO, Pharmeasy, Hero Moto Corp. and Dream11 were the sponsors for this South African cricket league.
Prize Pool & Revenue
There were different prizes offered to the players and teams in the Mzansi Super League tournament. At the beginning of this tournament total prize pool was around $623685. According to South African currency Rand, the total prize pool of this tournament in 2018 was around R9.25 million. In this prize pool,
Top Teams & Players
Currently, Paarl Rocks are the champion and winner titleholder of Mzansi Super League (MSL). Paarl Rocks have won this title for the first time. If we talk about the top-performing players then there are different players from different teams who performed very well. Reeza Hendricks is the top-scoring batsman who has scored more than 680 runs in this tournament. On the other hand, Duanne Olivier and Dale Steyn are the top-performing bowlers of this tournament. Dale Steyn has taken around 27 wickets in this tournament, while Duanne Olivier also has taken the same number of wickets in this tournament. The most successful team in this tournament is Jozi Stars. But now Paarl Rocks has also won the title, so both teams are equivalent in terms of several titles won.
Venues & Broadcasting
All the teams involved in this tournament have their home grounds with different capacity. Cape Town Blitz is the Franchise team for the city of Cape Town and it has its ground known as Newlands Cricket Ground. On the other hand, other teams like Durban Heat, Jozi Stars, etc. have their home grounds. All the matches of these tournaments are always held in these stadiums. If we talk about broadcasting rights, then there are different broadcasters for different countries. For the domestic broadcasting of matches South African Broadcasting Corporation was authorized and for the international broadcasting, Global Sports Commerce (GSC) was given the rights.
