Newlands will raise the curtain on SA20 Season 4 on 26 December and, four weeks later on 25 January, will also stage the final. The campaign starts with defending champions MI Cape Town facing Durban’s Super Giants, before the competition moves into a tight playoff schedule:
• Qualifier 1 – Durban, 21 January (top two sides)
• Eliminator – Centurion, 23 January (third v fourth)
• Qualifier 2 – Johannesburg, 24 January (winner of Eliminator v loser of Qualifier 1)
• Final – Cape Town, 25 January
“The SA20 season 4 is shaping up to be an incredibly exciting summer of cricket, kicking off on Boxing Day and running through the holiday period,” league commissioner Graeme Smith said. “Last year Newlands sold out all five matches at the venue and with the final taking place on a Sunday, it sets up an incredible afternoon with great weather, entertainment and a lively atmosphere to crown our season 4 champions.
“Durban will host a playoff for the first time. We are hoping this will excite the fans, especially because the two best teams of the competition will be playing in that Qualifier 1. We’re also excited to go back to Centurion and Wanderers on Thursday and Friday nights. It’s always key to have the venues close together because the matches are a day apart.”
Durban’s first taste of knockout cricket feels overdue. Kingsmead, lively with holiday crowds in December, has not always enjoyed the same pull later in the season, yet the league is banking on a top-two clash to fill the stands. Centurion and the Wanderers, traditional high-scoring venues, get the back-to-back mid-week slots that should limit player travel and keep broadcast timings tidy.
The six franchises – Joburg Super Kings, Paarl Royals, Pretoria Capitals, Sunrisers Eastern Cape, Durban’s Super Giants and MI Cape Town – will complete their 19-player squads at the player auction on 9 September. With only one month between the hammer falling and the first ball bowled, coaches face a quick turnaround on combination planning.
Sunrisers Eastern Cape, champions of the first two editions and runners-up last time out, remain the yardstick. MI Cape Town’s breakthrough title in 2024-25 showed how quickly the balance can shift, especially once overseas signings bed in. Expect franchises to prioritise death-over specialists and middle-order anchors – two areas that frequently decided contests last season.
For now, the headline is geography: Cape Town gets the showpiece book-ends, Durban finally lands a playoff, and Gauteng keeps its Friday-night lights. A neat circuit, assuming the coastal weather behaves.
