SA announces busy 2016-17 home season
CAPE TOWN — South Africa has announced a busy program of incoming tours for the 2016-17 international season that includes series against Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
The Proteas will start their home Test season early in a two-match series against New Zealand in August 2016 to be played in Durban and Pretoria.
It will be the first time Test matches will be staged in South Africa in August, still officially winter, and follows the successful hosting of New Zealand for One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 matches in the same month this year.
The Tests will be followed by a five-match ODI series against Australia from Sept. 30-Oct. 12, before Sri Lanka arrives for the longest tour of the summer in December that includes three Tests, five ODIs and three Twenty20 internationals.
The first five-day match (Dec. 15-19) will be played in Johannesburg, with Port Elizabeth being awarded the Boxing Day test (Dec. 26-30) ahead of Durban and Cape Town keeping its traditional New Year’s encounter (Jan. 2-6, 2017).
Ireland will also make a brief appearance on the calendar when it plays a single ODI against South Africa and Australia each between Sept. 25-27.
In between the visits by Australia and Sri Lanka, the Proteas will tour Australia for a Test series and also visit New Zealand in February and March, 2017. The specifics of those two tours are yet to be announced.
Holder suspended
West Indies captain Jason Holder has been slapped with a one-match suspension for his team’s second slow over rate offense of the year under him, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said Tuesday.
West Indies was found two overs short of the target in its one-wicket defeat by Sri Lanka in Sunday’s first One-Day International in Colombo.
Holder, who will miss the second ODI of the three-match series Wednesday, was also fined 40 percent of his match fee, while his teammates received 20 percent fines. — Agencies
