THE Board of Directors of Cricket South Africa (CSA) approved the names of the 17 players proposed by the selection panel for national contracts for the 2014-2015 year. New contracts have been awarded to Quinton de Kock of the bizhub Highveld Lions and David Miller of the Sunfoil Dolphins.
The number of contracted players has been reduced from 22 to 17 in terms of the agreement reached between CSA and the South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA) for the period May 2014 to 2018.
“I am delighted that we recently signed a new Heads of Agreement with SACA,” commented CSA Chief Executive, Haroon Lorgat. “As expected, negotiating player terms that include earnings will always be challenging, but I was really pleased with the positive and mature way in which the negotiations were conducted.
“In addition to the 17 nationally contracted players CSA will also offer 12 top-up contracts for aspiring Franchise players who could be regarded as potential Proteas in the future. This group will only be selected once the Franchises have completed the contracting of their players.”
The Board also approved a request from the Chief Executive to consider multi-year contracts.
“I am pleased to announce a new development with eight of our top players being awarded two-year contracts as we try to reward and secure our major players. They deserve it!”, commented Mr. Lorgat.
The Board of CSA also announced a final one-year contract for Jacques Kallis to recognise his immense contribution to South African cricket over a long period of time and to secure his availability for the ODI squad. This contract does not form part of the 17-man national list as it is a special contract with specific terms.
“We are well aware of the incredible stature of Jacques and his personal desire to play in next year’s ICC World Cup. We want to help him as best as we can,” added Mr Lorgat.
CSA contracted players: Hashim Amla (Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras), Quinton de Kock (bizhub Highveld Lions), AB de Villiers (The Unlimited Titans), JP Duminy (Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras), Faf du Plessis (The Unlimited Titans), Imran Tahir (bizhub Highveld Lions), Rory Kleinveldt (Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras), Ryan McLaren (Chevrolet Knights), David Miller (Sunfoil Dolphins), Morne Morkel (The Unlimited Titans), Wayne Parnell (Chevrolet Warriors), Alviro Petersen (bizhub Highveld Lions), Robin Peterson (Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras), Vernon Philander (Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras), Graeme Smith (Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras), Dale Steyn (Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras), Lonwabo Tsotsobe (bizhub Highveld Lions)
The Board meeting also considered a number of other topics at its scheduled meeting. Mr Lorgat reported on the successful ending and the highly positive outcomes achieved during the RAM SLAM T20 Challenge.
“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Ram Hand-to-Hand Couriers for their creativity and support which resulted in them winning the Best New Sponsorship award at last week’s Sports Industry Awards 2014.
“Spectator attendance was up by 43 percent and we had a sold-out crowd for the Final.
“The domestic TV audience for the Final match exceeded 400 000 and the total domestic audience over the 21 televised matches was 1.7million. For the first time we had global TV coverage and I believe this must be the reason why Beuran Hendricks – the record wicket-taker for the tournament – landed a lucrative IPL contract.”
The Board was also provided with updated financial reports for the current financial year which ends on 30 April. The Board thanked management for its efforts to reduce the impact of the curtailed India tour by sourcing new revenues and curbing costs.
“Although we will still achieve a surplus for the year, we are estimating this to be around R54m short against what we had budgeted for the year.” said Mr. Lorgat.
The Board also noted completion of the new High Performance Centre in Pretoria, within budget.
“We are really excited and we are naturally looking forward to the opening of this world class facility next month.” concluded Mr. Lorgat.