South Africa scheduled for a boxing day Test this year

India’s tour of South Africa will not be until the early part of 2018, but South Africa will have a boxing day Test as confirmed by Cricket South Africa CEO Haroon Lorgat. He further said that the board is in the process of securing an opponent for the festive season encounter.

Australia and England have been the other countries, who have given prime importance to the Boxing Day encounter, with most of the fixtures being the longer format one. Lorgat, too said that South Africa would be looking to play a Test match ahead of a limited overs encounter for the last week of the year.

The South African CEO said that the first prize for the boxing day would be a Test match and not a limited overs encounter. Lorgat, further claimed that if he had a choice, he would prefer the longest format of the game over the shorter formats on the Boxing Day and the day of the New Year.

“We will have content for Boxing Day, but we’re not yet in a position to announce that. We need to secure it first,” Lorgat said.

The teams in contention for the Boxing Day encounter

The Boxing day Test in the past has been a shocker, whether conducted at Durban or Port Elizabeth with only a few people in attendance. While there are only a few people who attend the Test at the stadium, the others prefer to watch it at home on their television units making it a popular event.

Cricket South Africa was interested in bringing Pakistan for a one-match series during the festive period, with their series against New Zealand beginning in the early months of next year. However, the talks have not been finalised, and it now looks increasingly that Zimbabwe would be touring South Africa during the festive period with West Indies being in contention.

South Africa will play an 11-Test home summer with two matches against Bangladesh starting later this month, one over Boxing Day, four against India and four against Australia. It would be, however, interesting to see if they give an opportunity to the newly promoted teams to Test status- Ireland and Afghanistan.