Australia’s tour of South Africa likely to go as planned

Australia is scheduled to tour South Africa for three-match Test series with details set to be finalized and announced in about a week.

The dates are yet to be confirmed. But according to Ryan Harris, former Australian fast bowler, said that the team will most likely leave for the country on the 24th of February with the Tests to start in early March should the series goes as planned.

Due to the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, all the arrangements are conditional. Judge Zak Yacoob, the chairperson of Cricket South Africa’s interim board, said.

“Australia’s tour at this stage is going ahead. I had a chat with the chair of Cricket Australia about a week ago and we agreed that the tour is going to go ahead. We agreed that we are going to ensure that our facilities are as good as possible, as good as necessary.

In their summer series, South Africa hosted England and Sri Lanka. The England series, however, met with covid-19 issues. England was to play three T20Is and as many ODI matches. But the 2019 World Cup champions played only the shortest format and left the country without playing ODI series.

Three South African players and two hotel staff tested positive for covid-19 over the course of the three T20s. Before the ODI series, two England’s players were tested positive but was later turned out to be false.

When the Sri Lankan team arrived, the CSA had tightened the protocols ahead of the series. Teams were only allowed to leave for practice. The series was a success with no incident took place.

The Australian team will have to arrive by charter flight, but will not need to enter a strict quarantine on arrival.

World Test Championship

Meanwhile, the final spot is tightening up, especially when India defeated Australia 2-1 to go at the top of the table. Australia needs to win two Tests in South Africa and draw the third in order to leapfrog New Zealand on the World Test Championship table.

The table is currently led by India with 71.7% of the points per percentage, followed by New Zealand with 70%, Australia at third with 69.2%, and England with 65.2%. All four of the teams have the chance to qualify for the final while the rest have been eliminated from the race.

If the Test series go as planned, then this will be the first time their Test team plays in South Africa since the ball-tampering scandal.

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