Cape Town - Cricket South Africa (CSA) has been given a timely boost with RAM Hand to Hand Couriers having come on board to sponsor this season's domestic T20 competition.
FIXTURES: RAM Slam T20 Challlenge 2017
The competition, which has been brought forward in the domestic calendar following the postponement of the planned T20 Global League, will be known as the RAM Slam T20 Challenge once more.
The partnership sees RAM reunited with CSA as the title sponsor of the tournament after it pulled out in 2016 following a match-fixing controversy that had plagued the competition.
With the arrival of the Global League also planned for this year, RAM and CSA had not been able to put pen to paper on an extended deal.
An agreement has since been reached, though, and CSA has now salvaged some credibility ahead of the first match of the tournament on Friday.
"It is great news for our cricket to welcome Ram Hand to Hand Couriers back as one of our naming rights sponsors," commented CSA Acting Chief Executive Thabang Moroe.
"We are particularly grateful to them for coming aboard at unavoidably short notice.
"This season’s competition, which will feature all our Proteas, will probably be the most significant since we launched the franchise concept in this format back in 2004.
RAM's Executive chairperson David Lazarus explained the company's decision to get involved in domestic cricket once more.
"Ram is a proudly South African company," he said.
"Our business has been built on partnership, reliability and delivering when it counts. When we received the call from CSA regarding the opportunity the answer was an unequivocal 'yes' as everything spoke directly to what we are about.
"We are excited to revive the Ram Slam and we challenge all South Africans to come and support their team and stand a chance to win their share of R2 million."
This year will see the popular 'Catch a Million' crowd competition increased to R2 million.