MI Cape Town rope in Jacob Oram as bowling coach ahead of inaugural edition of SA20

MI Cape Town on Wednesday announced that they have signed former New Zealand men’s all-rounder Jacob Oram as the side’s bowling coach ahead of the inaugural season of the SA20 league.

Oram represented New Zealand as a fast-bowling all-rounder in 33 Tests, 160 ODIs, and 36 T20Is from 2001 to 2012. He had played in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and his final season in 2013 was with the Mumbai Indians when the side won the trophy in that season. After that, Oram made a transition to coaching in 2014 with the ‘New Zealand A’ side.

He was recently the assistant coach of the New Zealand Women’s cricket Team, and with experience in franchise cricket, joins the MI Cape Town coaching team of Simon Katich (Head Coach), Hashim Amla (Batting Coach), James Pamment (Fielding Coach), and Robin Peterson (Team Manager).

MI Cape Town will be captained by Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan. The side has a solid local South African core of Kagiso Rabada, Dewald Brevis and Rassie van der Dussen, along with international stars like Jofra Archer, Sam Curran and Liam Livingstone.

They will also play in the opening game of SA20 on January 10 against Paarl Royals at their home ground in Cape Town. The SA20 league, comprising 33 matches, will run till February 11, with the final to be played at the Wanderers in Johannesburg.

Each of the six SA20 teams will have five home and away matches respectively. The tournament will be halted between January 25 and February 1 when South Africa host England for three World Cup Super League ODIs.

SA20 will be the third time South Africa would be attempting to launch a global franchise T20 league in the country. In its previous attempts, the attempt to start Global League T20 failed to happen in 2017.

Its replacement, the Mzansi Super League was held in 2018 and 2019 but didn’t get the big broadcast rights, with the free-to-air South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) getting broadcast rights for a much smaller sum. The league hasn’t been played since 2020 due to Covid-19 pandemic and will now make way for the SA20.

-IANS

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