Pakistan men’s team to tour South Africa for Test, ODI and T20I series

Staff Report

 LAHORE: South Africa will host Pakistan and Sri Lanka’s men’s teams and England’s women’s team in the 2024-25 summer for a total of 17 international fixtures, including five Tests, between November and January. The men’s Test series form part of the World Test Championship and will be played in Durban and Gqeberha (Sri Lanka), and Centurion and Cape Town (Pakistan), which leaves the country’s biggest venue ––– the Wanderers in Johannesburg ––– without a Test for the second summer in succession. The Wanderers did not host either of the two Tests against India in the 2023-24 summer and with South Africa not due to host any Tests in the 2025-26 summer, the earliest the venue can hope for a Test fixture is 2026. Officials gave “no explanation” for why the venue has been snubbed, though it retains the annual Pink Day fixture ––– an ODI match to raise funds for breast cancer treatment. The women’s Test will be played in Bloemfontein, which last hosted a Test seven years ago, when the men played Bangladesh in October 2017. Kingsmead and St George’s Park also last saw Test action against Bangladesh, in the 2021-22 season, and will be the venues for the Sri Lanka series. It was at these same two grounds that Sri Lanka won their first Test series against South Africa in 2019. The Sri Lanka series is red-ball only.

That will be followed by a full tour from Pakistan, who will play three T20Is and three ODIs before the festive-season Tests. The Boxing Day Test will be held at SuperSport Park before the New Year’s Test at Newlands, which ends on January 7. The men’s team will then have no further home international assignments, with the SA20 due to start shortly afterwards and run into early February. The exact dates are yet to be confirmed and there is a potential overlap with an ODI tri-series in Pakistan before the Champions Trophy, pencilled in for mid-February. The women’s team will host England for three T20Is, three ODIs, including the Black Day ODI to raise awareness about gender-based violence, and a Test. They have one fixture in each white-ball format at a premier ground: a T20I in Centurion and an ODI in Durban. The Test will be the first women’s Test played in the country in 22 years, since South Africa played India in Paarl in 2002.