The Mzansi Super League, the premier professional Twenty20 cricket league held annually in South Africa, was on Monday cancelled for the second successive year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the country’s cricket board has confirmed.
The decision to cancel the 2022 edition of the Mzansi Super League, which was scheduled to be held in February, was taken due to increased travel restrictions imposed by many countries on South Africa after the emergence of the Omicron variant, making it difficult to host the tournament.
Earlier, the 2020 edition of the T20 league was also cancelled due to logistical challenges due to the pandemic.
“The decision to cancel the 2021 edition of the MSL is meant to allow CSA and its strategic partners to revamp and review the tournament post-Covid-19 to regain its market and commercial position. For its purposes, the MSL slot will again be replaced by a domestic CSA T20 Challenge, featuring the 8 (eight) Division 1 teams and this tournament will take place in February 2022,” Cricket South Africa (CSA)’s acting CEO Pholetsi Moseki said.
The board meanwhile, also said the Mzansi Super League will be replaced by a domestic T20 Challenge tournament featuring eight first division teams.
Notably, South Africa reported a record number of daily infections last week in a fourth wave caused by the Omicron variant.
Recently, the spread of a new variant of Covid-19 in the African nation had raised doubts over India’s tour of South Africa however, the Ministry of International relations and Cooperation of the host nation had given full assurance to the Indian government and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) regarding the safety of Indian players.
Later, India’s tour was also rescheduled after the BCCI and the CSA reached an agreement and the T20I series, which was earlier a part of the tour, was postponed to a later date.
The series, which was earlier scheduled to begin from December 17, will later decided to begin from December 26.
The first Test will be played at the SuperSport Park in Centurion between December 26 and 30 while the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg will host the second Test from January.
The third match of the series will be played in Newlands in Cape Town between January 11 to 15 which will be followed by the ODI series.
Significantly, the Omicron variant, which was reportedly first detected in South Africa, has spread to many parts of the world with several nations now suspending flights to and from the country.