Cricket South Africa announces fixtures of white-ball series against Australia

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Australia tour of South Africa complete fixtures

Australia will tour South Africa for the multi-format white-ball series, announced Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Friday. The tour will feature three T20 Internationals (T20Is) and five One-Day Internationals (ODIs).

All three T20Is will take place at the renowned Kingsmead Stadium in Durban, with the first match scheduled for August 30. The focus will then shift to the 50-over format, starting September 07 at Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein, where the first two ODIs will be held. One ODI match each will then take place at Potchefstroom, Centurion, and Johannesburg.

The purpose of the upcoming tour is to make up for the Test series that was cancelled in early 2021 due to Australia’s withdrawal over Covid-19 concerns. However, the itinerary for this tour does not include any Test matches. It means that there will be an eight-year gap between Australia’s Test matches on South African soil, with their next tour scheduled in 2026 as per the latest FTP.

Notably, the two cricket nations were set to play an ODI series down under in January, but CSA withdrew from the series to make sure their players could participate in the inaugural SA20. This move put their World Cup qualification chances at risk. Although they currently rank among the top eight teams in the Super League, their fate still depends on the outcome of the Ireland-Bangladesh series.

This Ireland-Bangladesh battle is scheduled to take place in England next week, where if Ireland manages to win all three matches, they will move ahead of the Proteas in the rankings, causing South Africa to participate in the qualifying event in June.

“It is the start of the international season for us and it is a particularly important campaign in many respects because of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. We haven’t qualified just yet, but we hope to be there and challenging the best in the world when the tournament is played in October and November,” said CSA CEO Pholetsi Moseki in a statement.