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Cape Town - Cricket South Africa (CSA) will extend the Expression of Interest deadline for its new SA T20 League tournament to this Friday.
It was initially announced that players wanting to play in the competition would have until Tuesday, October 2 to apply, but Sport24 understands that the deadline has now been pushed back to Friday.
Once that process has been completed, CSA will announce the players and will then facilitate a player draft on October 12 where the six franchises will secure their players ahead of the start of the competition on November 9.
With the 2017 T20 Global League embarrassingly scrapped late last year, CSA has been under pressure to get an international T20 competition off the ground in 2018.
Under the leadership of new CEO Thabang Moroe, they have now committed to doing so but face a massive challenge if they are to pull it off successfully.
Quite simply, they are running out of time.
For the tournament to generate significant in South Africa and abroad, the quality of players on show must be of a world class standard.
Last year, there was no shortage of international star power at the Global League draft where the likes of Chris Gayle, Kevin Pietersen, Kieron Pollard, Jason Roy, Eoin Morgan, Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo and Lasith Malinga were all unveiled as marquee players.
One of the major stumbling blocks to the SA T20 League this year, though, is that six of those players (Pietersen and Malinga excluded) have signed to take part in the Abu Dhabi T10 League, which runs from November 23 to December 2 this year.
There are a host of other top-class players - South Africans included - who have also committed to that tournament.
But, according to CSA communications head Koketso Gaofetoge, a number of those marquee players are likely to still feature in the SA T20 League.
"An arrangement has been reached and will be communicated once the EOI closes on Friday," he said.
Gaofetoge added that the interest from overseas players had been "good" and of a high calibre.
