#BoxingDay: Proteas, Zimbabwe in first official four-day Test!
Did you know our national cricket team, the Proteas, will today play in the first official four-day Test?
It won’t be India, but SA Cricket has managed to give the citizens of the country what they wanted – a test match on Boxing Day.
The opposition? Our neighbours, Zimbabwe, in a once-off Test Match at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth which starts at 2pm. There is however, a twist, as the match will be played over four days only, and not the usual five.
www.espncricinfo.com [https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/21008545/south-africa-play-zimbabwe-inaugural-four-day-test] explains that it will be ‘the first official game of the new format on Boxing Day. The trial is scheduled to run through until the 2019 World Cup, although participation in it is not mandatory. This decision was taken in Auckland, where the ICC has also given an in-principle agreement to a Test championship to bring context back into the world game. While most of those matches will take place over five days, ICC chief executive David Richardson felt the four-day format can be quite helpful to the lower-ranked nations and the two newest Full Members, namely Afghanistan and Ireland’.
Come 5 January 2018, South Africans will welcome the number one team on the ICC rankings, India. The Proteas are rated second, which means the match will be a real cracker!
The schedule for India’s 2018 tour of SA is:
• Test in Cape Town from 5 January
• Test in Centurion from 13 January
• Test in Johannesburg from 24 January
• One-day International (ODI) match in Durban on 1 February
• ODI match in Centurion on 4 February
• ODI match in Cape Town on 7 February
• ODI match in Johannesburg on 10 February
• ODI match in Port Elizabeth on 13 February
• ODI match in Centurion on 16 February
• T20 match in Johannesburg on 18 February
• T20 match in Centurion on 21 February
• T20 match in Cape Town on 24 February
Visit the SA Cricket website [https://cricket.co.za/fixtures-proteas] for more information, ticket prices, etc.
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