Temba Bavuma’s team won’t play a single Test in South Africa next summer ©AFP Tony de Zorzi scored a century for the first time in 23 innings of all shapes and sizes for Western Province in their first-class match against Boland at Newlands on Thursday. In the same game on Friday, WP’s Kyle Verreynne completed his first hundred in 20 trips to assorted creases. Also at Newlands on Friday, George Linde upstaged De Zorzi’s 141 and Verreynne’s unbeaten 131 by hammering 91 off 66 balls, 66 of them in fours and sixes. All of which bodes well for South Africa’s home Tests next summer. De Zorzi and Verreynne are prominent members of Shukri Conrad’s current squad, and Linde would seem to have found a way back to international level having fallen out of favour between September 2021 and December last year. South Africa’s focus is currently on the WTC final against Australia at Lord’s in June, but they will know the summer of 2025/26 will be on them before long. And that will mean preparing to give of their best in their home conditions. They will be able to get some of that job done in the two Tests they will play against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo in June and July, but the real examination will await in the challenging conditions they have grown up in. Except that the exam has been postponed. Because no Test cricket will be played in South Africa for an entire season next summer for the first time since 1970/71. It happened then because the pressure put on other countries to isolate the apartheid state bore fruit. There was no international cricket in the country – barring a slew of unseemly rebel tours – until India’s visit in 1992/93. Now, it’s because South Africa will play four Tests in Pakistan and India in November and December. This has, predictably, led to much clutching of pearls. But the pearl clutchers should have seen it coming. Only two men’s Tests have been played in South Africa in four of the last 10 seasons, when there have been fewer than five Tests seven times. The trickle was sure to dry up eventually. Tests are expensive to host and, more often than not in South Africa, poorly attended. CSA could do better things with their limited resources than stage matches in a format fewer South Africans than ever seem to care enough about to turn out to watch in significant numbers; it is rare for a day’s play to draw even 10,000 spectators. Besides, exponentially greater than normal Test service will resume in 2026/27. England and Australia will tour and play three Tests each, the only series of more than two matches on South Africa’s 2023 to 2027 FTP. Bangladesh will also be here to play two Tests. Neither before nor since 2017/18, when Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, India and Australia played 10 Tests in South Africa, will as many as eight men’s matches in the format have flooded a summer here. For good measure, South Africa’s women’s side will play a home Test against each of India and Australia next season. From zero Tests to 10! Still, some will blame the SA20. How dare the tournament shove the Test summer out of the way by starting on December 26 instead of its usual explosion into our lives on January 9 or 10? Closer to the truth is that the SA20 is, not for the first time, doing South African cricket a favour. Without it beginning when it will this time, the country’s most prestigious ovals would be desolate at the height of summer – even more desolate than most of them tend to be during days of Test cricket. Instead grounds will teem with bumper crowds come to watch many of the best players in the global game. And it’s not as if there won’t be any non-SA20 cricket to watch. Aside from the usual domestic competitions, the New Zealand A men’s team will be here, along with the Bangladesh men’s under-19s. The senior men’s side will play five T20Is against West Indies, and the women will take on Ireland and Pakistan in ODI and T20I rubbers. That amounts to a total of 17 senior white-ball internationals. There will be plenty of international cricket to watch in South Africa in 2025/26. Just no Test cricket. Which next to no-one watches, anyway. Seen objectively, who could complain about that? Not the players. “Protecting History, Embracing Change: a Unified, Coherent Global Future”, a World Cricketers’ Association (WCA) report released on Wednesday, revealed that only 49% of the 328 mostly international players they surveyed in 2024 believed Test cricket was the primary form of the game to play. If most of the players themselves can see the truth, what’s wrong with the rest of us? Test cricket, the most absorbing, intriguing, magical form of the game should you have the privileges of the time and money required to be able to watch it properly and the inclination to do so, is nice to have. That doesn’t mean you must have it. ShareTweet
