A mess of dates means Safs won’t get Tests in India

While Australia view their tour of India as the ‘last frontier to conquer’, the jumble of dates available for the game’s most...

While Australia view their tour of India as the ‘last frontier to conquer’, the jumble of dates available for the game’s most lucrative tour is being overshadowed by administrative squabbles between India and South Africa over the dates of the tour of the subcontinent.

Whatever BCCI secretary S K Nair says about Tests involving South Africa and India not being scrapped, sources in the United Cricket Board here at the Wanderers have confirmed that the tight scheduling indicates there has been no change in the tour proposals. There will be no Tests until most likely next year when a second tour is going to be scheduled. This will be in either September or October as South Africa tour the West Indies in March and April.

As it is, India’s hosting of the top two Test and limited overs’ nations within weeks of each other has created a serious congestion in tour fixtures. Firstly, South Africa’s tour of Sri Lanka has already lost a Test to accommodate the ICC Champions Trophy in England in September. Then there is England’s tour of South Africa starting in November and this comes after the Po-face Poms brush off the Zimbabwe dust.

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Therefore, the Safs tour of India is likely to be of about 19 days duration. No team is going to be able to manufacture two Tests and seven limited overs international out of such few days.

Anyway, it was known in early April, when news was first leaked to this reporter by UCB officials that the Safs would have only 19 days available for their tour of India. The claim made by the UCB was that the BCCI were only interested in a tour of seven limited overs internationals. Just how Mr Nair is going to explain that conundrum is interesting.

It also has nothing at all to do with the fanciful theory likely to be put out by the Indian board that because the Australian tour carries more importance than that of the Safs, they will give some of the dates offered to Graeme Smith’s side to the Wizards of Oz. It has already been decided as TV scheduling has to be sorted out months in advance.

If anyone cares to take a casual glance at the ICC’s Test Championship log after the historic 2-1 Test series win in neighbouring Pakistan, Team India have eased into fourth position.

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Why, even the 3-2 series win in the limited overs matches moved India higher up the ladder than Pakistan and with the Safs tour now consisting only of the limited overs games, India’s hopes to assume second place on the ICC limited overs log could be made that much easier.

The official UCB line earlier today is that tour negotiations are still taking place. As with India, they are sticking to the official version. Just keep an eye on this space for further developments.

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