England summer tour is on
20 ENGLAND’S four-test series against the Proteas will start on Boxing Day at Supersport Park this year, after Cricket South Africa yesterday finally released the schedule for next season.
Normally dates and venues for the season are announced at the end of the previous summer, but Cricket SA has been trying to get the matches played at grounds and more specifically in cities that the federation deems will be most lucrative to it.
Cricket SA shelved plans to have municipalities bid for the right to host international matches after details went public in March.
The schedule for the England series sees Supersport Park retain the Boxing Day Test, after a successful hosting last season, when Pakistan toured here.
The first day of that Test was sold out, and crowds for the remainder of that match were good as well, indicating there was a market for a match in the Gauteng region despite many people supposedly heading for the coast at that time of the year.
Cricket SA is desperate to turn the Boxing Day Test into a marquee event like the New Year’s Test match which is played in Cape Town.
And despite little marketing for Centurion’s inaugural hosting of that particular match last year, the public in Gauteng showed there was an appetite for a big fixture at that time of the year.
England will be a much more attractive drawcard than the Pakistanis were, and the team is also accompanied by its colourful supporters group, the ‘Barmy Army,’ which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. Representatives of the group have already met with Cricket SA as they are expecting massive numbers, especially for the second Test at Newlands.
Port Elizabeth was picked ahead of Durban to host the third Test, another knife to the heart for Kwazulu-natal fans who will have to make do with an ODI and a T20 International when England tours.
Kingsmead won’t be hosting any of the matches involving Australia, who will travel here in the second half of February for the first time since the sandpaper storm last year, for a three-match ODI series followed by a trio of T20 Internationals.
Although India were also slated to tour for a One-day series in
March, no details of that trip were announced yesterday.