Paarl Rocks captain Faf du Plessis said the Mzansi Super League has to ensure the play-offs and final are given sufficient opportunity to be concluded on the field, after his side’s semi-final on Friday night was rained out at the Wanderers, knocking the Rocks out of the tournament.
Not a ball was bowled after the toss had taken place due to a thunderstorm and, as a result of the Jozi Stars having finished ahead of the of Rocks on the log, they qualified to face the Cape Town Blitz in today's final at Newlands.
“When you have three teams going through, you should always have a reserve day for the play-off, that should be pretty standard,” Du Plessis said on Friday night. “Tomorrow’s a Saturday, a spare day. There is nothing happening and worst case scenario the team winning could have flown at night to the final. It’s not ideal but for a semi-final you always want to make sure you get a game in.”
Du Plessis raised his concerns with the MSL’s tournament director Russell Adams, who was apparently receptive to the idea. “For the final there is a reserve day with a two-hour extra allowance and that’s great,” Du Plessis continued.
“Something similar should have happened tonight. To lose overs immediately in a semi-final is not ideal, When it comes to semi-finals or finals you want that bit of breathing room to play the most amount of cricket that you can. I understand losing overs in the league-phase of the competition, during that stage, that’s okay, but when it comes to semi-finals and finals they have to make an allowance with an extra day.”
Du Plessis said the format for the tournament was ideal and that having two semi-finals involving four teams would have been too much. “I think having three qualifiers is perfect, the top team goes through to the final, and second and third play-off to meet them. If you play two semi-finals in a six-team tournament you can play bad cricket and still make the semi-finals and that’s not right. In this case the best teams qualified for the play-offs.”
Like many players both local and foreign, including AB de Villiers, Chris Gayle and England’s T20 captain Eoin Morgan, Du Plessis was impressed with South Africa’s offering into the ever expanding T20 market.
“Surprisingly I felt it went really well. I thought there might be a couple of things that might go wrong from an admin point of view, but the tournament was run very well. The standard of cricket was exceptional. It was brilliant to have the national team players involved. Not a lot of tournaments around the world can get that right."