The success of a T20 league relies on a strong contingent of active local international players, Faf du Plessis, a veteran of the circuit who will lead Jo'burg Super Kings for the second season of the SA20, believes.
"The secret always lies in the national players being available," du Plessis, former South Africa captain, told a select group of journalists during captains' day in Cape Town two days out from the start of the tournament. "I've played in some competitions where you get the national players for only half the competition or a third of the competition, and then the standard really drops."
And therein lies the conundrum that has caught fire over the last week, since the extent of South Africa's understrength Test squad that will play in New Zealand became clear. They will be captained by Neil Brand, who has yet to play a Test, and half the traveling group of 14 players are uncapped. The other half have just 50 Tests between them and only two - Keegan Petersen and David Bedingham - have played Test cricket in the last year. The composition of the squad was necessitated by the fact that the first-choice players are required to play the SA20, for exactly the reason du Plessis outlined.
But read his rationale again - you need high-profile international players to maintain the quality of a domestic league - and you may conclude that it sounds a bit chicken-and-egg. In order to produce high-profile international players, a country needs to play high-profile international cricket. But South Africa have had to cut down on its internationals to accommodate the SA20. At some point, doesn't that mean it will run out of high-quality internationals for the league?
Graeme Smith, the former South Africa captain who is now the commissioner of the SA20, doesn't think so. In fact, he is hopeful that the SA20 can soon begin to add to the production line of South African cricket. "It's domestic cricket, but the platform and the competition here make it a bridge closer to international cricket," he said. "Hopefully in year two, three or four years, we will start to see the benefits."
He may have a point. South Africa's white-ball coach Rob Walter indicated that because of the scarcity of T20Is - South Africa played three against India last month and will not play any more before the announcement of their World Cup squad - he will have to rely on the SA20 and the IPL when selecting his squad for the event in June 2024.
That means players like du Plessis, who has not played international cricket since February 2021 but has dominated run-charts in various T20 leagues, could find himself in contention for the national side, although he played down his own chances.
"That team would have been selected already, probably in terms of 90% of the squad," du Plessis said. "You can look at tournaments and pick one or two guys that are carrying some good form but if you ask the coach, he would have 90% of his team in his mind already."
It also means that a rookie who has an outstanding season could force his way into the national side, as was the case with Gerald Coetzee. He finished as the third-highest wicket-taker in last season's SA20, debuted across all formats later in the year, and is now one of South Africa's most promising prospects.
Perhaps it's possible that South Africa's next generation of Test players will emerge from T20 leagues, though it won't happen overnight and, in the immediate term, the future of the Test side will remain a concern.
South Africa will only play two-Test series through the 2023-25 World Championship cycle, and won't play any home Tests between January 2025 and September 2026. Ask around, and many current and former players want to find ways to fit more Test cricket into the calendar but don't know how that could work.
For his part, du Plessis - who calls himself a "purist who wants to see Test cricket still played in 50 or 100 years' time" - has a suggestion: "Maybe it's considering playing four-day Test matches so you have an extra day in the calendar to play maybe a third Test match," he said. "I am not a big fan of two Test matches [in a series]. Everyone walks away from the series thinking there should have been one more or what if? I was joking with Aiden [Markram] earlier and said after losing the Newlands Test [to India] in one-and-a-half days, why didn't the two captains get together and say let's play another Test match tomorrow?"
We won't know whether Markram or Rohit Sharma seriously thought about that but Markram, who is among those who will miss the New Zealand Tests, also spoke about the primacy of Test cricket. "You want to play Test cricket as a cricketer, that's for sure," he said. "It's still my most favourite format of the game. [But] ultimately, the cards have been dealt and we are unfortunately going to miss that series in New Zealand."
Markram's even-toned answer reflects much of the mood in the country. While much of the cricketing world continues to view the message South Africa are sending with the make-up of their squad to New Zealand as an indictment on the game, there is acceptance at home. Test coach Shukri Conrad said the national team has to "find a way to co-exist" with the SA20, and Smith agreed. "The SA20 is a four-week tournament in a whole year. We can co-exist," he said. "There has been an intent from CSA to say this product [the SA20] is important for us and we need to give it the best chance to succeed, and for that we need to have our best players available."
And, in many ways, South Africa could be setting a few precedents for how countries outside of the Big Three [Australia, England and India] will operate. "It's still quite new in the world at the moment and hopefully over this next year we can carve a new way forward," Markram said.
He wouldn't be the only one looking at that timeframe as cricket's landscape changes and national boards walk the tightrope between league cricket and bilateral arrangements.