‘New Year’s’ Test will start three days later

FESTIVE season cricket lovers will have to wait three more days for the annual “New Year’s” Test at Newlands next year.

The traditional start is 2 January, but with the World’s No 1 ranked Test team India only concluding their home season against Sri Lanka on 24 December, the first Test against the Proteas will only get under way on 5 January.

Cricket South Africa confirmed yesterday that Centurion and Johannesburg, along with Cape Town, would be the venues for South Africa’s three-match series against India with Durban missing out.

India have also played a Test at Kingsmead on every tour to South Africa since 1992, bar 2001 when a twomatch series was staged in Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth. The three elected Test venues will also play host to the three-match T20 international series that concludes the India tour.

Sandwiched between the Test and T20 series, there will be a six-match ODI series with Kingsmead and St George’s Park the additional venues.

Port Elizabeth is the big winner of the 2017-18 international season with “The Friendly City” also hosting the inaugural four-day daynight “Test” against Zimbabwe, starting on Boxing Day, and the second Test against Australia in March.

The Australians, who will be playing a four-match Test series in South Africa for the first time since the 196970 season when Ali Bacher’s team famously whitewashed the tourists 4-0, will also play Tests in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg.