Humble Yourself to Prosper

The SA20 Player Auction

Humble Yourself to be Rewarded

    It’s not often that I return straight to the same topic of a previous column but the debate about the unsold Temba Bavuma and Andile Phehlukwayo at the SA20 Player Auction will keep rumbling. There have been a couple of updates since my last column.

    When Cricket South Africa and the SA20 Board of Directors asked every nationally contracted player to be available for the tournament, they had to pay. The new tournament was obviously not included in the players’ contracts so a fee of $50k was negotiated on their behalf by the SA Cricketers Association. That equates to roughly R850k per player, which was the base price Bavuma and Phehlukwayo opted for.

    Dean Elgar and Keegan Petersen, the only other nationally contracted players who were unsold, opted for the lowest reserve price of R175k in order to increase their chances of being involved. That didn’t happen but they will still enjoy a spectacularly well-paid month’s break when the tournament starts in January.

    It would appear that a fundamental difference of opinion between the players and the six SA20 Franchises led to the non-purchase of Bavuma and Phehlukwayo rather than a belief that they had no useful role to play in the tournament.

    If there is one aspect of Player Auctions which is consistent across all sports, and has certainly been prevalent in recent cricket versions of the compelling but unsavoury practise, it is that players who are perceived to have over-valued themselves are shunned. By every team.

    Modesty, it seems, is the most valued commodity in the most immodest of processes. Teams will happily bid, and pay, 20 times a player’s ‘base price’ but they will not touch him, or her, if they price themselves above the market perception of their worth.

    Bavuma and fellow Protea, all rounder Phehlukwayo, valued themselves (or were advised to) at a base price R850,000 despite being urged, along with the majority of the nationally contracted players, to ‘start low’.

    As national captain and with 100 domestic T20 games worth of experience, and a domestic title as captain, it is inconceivable that not a single one of the six Franchises could see value in his acquisition. And he is a batsman ‘on the up’ – he is getting better. But when it came to his price, the Franchises reverted to their own numbers. Or rather, his numbers.

    In those 100 games Bavuma averages a respectable 30.5 but his strike rate is 124.6. Franchise T20 openers need to be able to strike at a minimum of 150 these days. In his 25 T20 Internationals, the average drops to 26.7 and the strike rate to 120.6. Further, deeper analysis of his statistics suggest that batting him at the top of the order places the middle order under pressure and adversely affects their output.

    Phehlukwayo’s description as an all rounder is legitimate in 50-over cricket and first-class level but his T20 numbers don’t back that up. He has played 107 domestic games and, while he has taken 92 wickets at an economy rate of 8.47, he averages just 12.37 with the bat in 72 innings. If the runs had been scored at a strike rate in excess of 150, the average would be irrelevant given that he bats in the lower order, but his strike rate is 119. In 21 T20I innings it is just 115.5.

    News from those involved on the Auction floor was that a unanimous reaction amongst the Franchises was that, if Bavuma and Phehlukwayo really believed they were worth R850k then their lack of understanding of how Franchise cricket worked was as much of a handicap as their statistics. My first assertion, that Bavuma deserved better than to be snubbed and was worth a squad place, was naieve. It is oddly comforting that I am still capable of naievity. He was worth a squad place – but not at R850k. Especially when he would be banking that anyway.   

    Meanwhile news ‘broke’ over the weekend that the SA20 had failed to attract a broadcaster in India. The story was almost certainly ‘planted’ by one of the interested parties, along with the news that the UAE league (ILT20) had successfully sold its rights to Indian broadcaster Zee TV for $120million over 10 years.

    The truth, as ever in the cut-throat business of broadcast rights, was more nuanced. With six IPL Franchise teams competing in the SA20 there can be no doubt about the appetite for the tournament in India – and there has been no shortage of interest shown.

    An attempt to create the impression that the SA20 had over-valued the price of its rights is unlikely to cause the desired back-peddling. The ILT20 did, indeed, sell its rights to Zee TV but apparently for $100million, not $120million – and they were the global rights, not just Indian. In other words, the ILT20 took a once-off payment and an immediate ceiling on its value. They cannot earn any extra over the next decade by selling regional rights.

    Viewing figures in India for the ILT20 may, initially, exceed figures for the SA20 because Indian audiences will recognise more players – each of the six       Franchises in the UAE contains 12 international players, after all – but history confirms that the greatest sporting competitions have been the most well-attended, however they may be tailored for a television audience. And that is where the SA20 hopes to create a competitive advantage over its rival in the desert.

    Live audiences don’t just ‘enhance’ a competition’s popularity to a wider, global audience watching on-line or on television, they make it. It may not happen immediately, but in a year or two the SA20 board believe that cheering crowds at Supersport Park, Newland and the Wanderers will attract a greater global audience than matches played in mostly empty stands in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. That’s the plan.  

This article was adapted from a column for Business Day SA.