Cricket South Africa announce fixtures for 2018-19 international season

The Cricket South Africa (CSA) has announced the fixtures for their upcoming international season. The Proteas team will play as many as 21 ODI matches before heading in to the ICC World Cup 2019. This comes as a big news for the national side as it provides them ample opportunity to prepare for the marquee tournament. The cricket board finalized the venues and the fixtures for the national side during the phase from July 2018 to March 2019.

The season will kick off with South Africa touring Sri Lanka. After a full tour in Sri Lanka, they will host their neighbours Zimbabwe in 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is. Next in line will be the big tour of Australia. The series will see the two top sides lock horns in 3 ODIs and a couple of T20Is.

This will be followed by the Pakistan tour of South Africa that will see as many as 11 international matches played between the two sides across the three formats of the game. Just before the World Cup 2019, the Proteas will host Sri Lanka for a full tour. The final match of this assignment will be played on March 24. A week later, they will enter the World Cup.

“We now have a concentrated programme of 21 ODIs – 13 at home and 8 away – ahead of the World Cup. This will give the National Selection Panel and the Proteas team management time first to finalise our squad of 15 players to bid for that elusive trophy and then every opportunity to fine tune their game plan accordingly,” commented CSA Acting Chief Executive Thabang Moroe as per the quotes in cricket.co.za.

“I would also like to stress that the other two formats – Test cricket and T20 International cricket – also feature strongly on our list over the next year with 7 Test matches to be played against Sri Lanka and Pakistan and 10 T20 International matches to be played against Australia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,” he remarked.