We Needed To Find A Balance Between The New League And Bilateral Cricket: Pholetsi Moseki

The main reason for South Africa’s lack of Test cricket in the upcoming Future Tours Programme is the need to make room for their new T20 franchise league. South Africa will play 113 international matches overall, the third-fewest after Ireland and Zimbabwe. From 2023 to 2027, they will play 28 Test matches and no three-Test series during the World Test Championship cycle.

The CSA league will start in January 2023 and continue to be played in January. As soon as the yearly New Year’s Test is finished (typically around January 8), the six-team, 33-match event will begin and last until the first Sunday in February. Even with the expense of international matches, all of South Africa’s top white-ball players are anticipated to be available.

Hosting Test Matches Costs Money: Pholeti Moseki

“We needed to find a balance between the new league and bilateral cricket. We needed to create enough space so that we would not have international fixtures clashing with our new league.

“We know that you need to play a minimum of two Tests in a series for the World Test Championship and so that’s what we’ve done. We also have to be honest that hosting Tests costs us money,” Moseki said.

“It is sad that we don’t play more Tests, especially for purists. We don’t have enough Tests. But with the congestion of the calendar, we had a balance and a schedule that makes sense, especially with the league in mind.

We are not the BCCI – we don’t have a clear calendar for our league and we have to work around that. The FTP is structured around Tests and members have discussions around the number of white-ball games they want to play as add-ons or standalone events. We will still have some talks around that and we are hopeful we will have more matches”, he added.

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