CAPE TOWN: South Africa and India will start their three-match Test series later this month on Dec 26 with a Boxing Day fixture in Pretoria, officials confirmed on Monday.

       The second test will be staged in Johannesburg from Jan 3-7, with the third in Cape Town from Jan 11-15 in a revised itinerary after India requested to arrive a week later than originally planned for the tour.

       The teams will also contest a three-match One-Day International Series between Jan 19-23, with the first two games played in Paarl and the third in Cape Town.

       The Test series will form part of the new cycle of the World Test Championship, while the ODIs will count towards the Super League, the qualification tournament for the 2023 World Cup.

       A revised schedule, which has done away with four Twenty20 Internationals that had originally been pencilled in, was agreed over the weekend after India had expressed reservations about touring due to the discovery of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in South Africa.

       Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2021