Our proposed series against SA in September depends a lot on IPL, reveals Johny Grave
CWI CEO Johny Grave has stated that he is hopeful of hosting South Africa, albeit for a small part, in September but added that a lot will depend on the IPL. Windies were originally scheduled to host the Proteas for two Tests and five T20Is in July-August but the pandemic enforced a postponement.
Windies became the first international team to tour for an international series during the Covid-19 pandemic and restarted the English summer that now looks all set to finish without a glitch. Considering the Caribbean Islands have been least impacted by the threat of novel coronavirus, it is safe to presume that they will plan their home series accordingly, simultaneously with the Caribbean Premier League that sets to begin on August 18.
CWI Chief Executive Johny Grave gave a brief idea of the same during the Mason and Guests cricket show, stating that a shortened tour against South Africa is in consideration but the planning would come to fruition after the IPL schedule is out.
"It will be dependent on the IPL. South Africa have a number of their Test players who have IPL contracts, whereas in this current Test team we don't have any IPL players. We won't be able to play Test cricket against South Africa during the IPL, Cricket South Africa have made that very clear to us. They've got a commitment to their players to allow them to go and play in the IPL,” Grave said.
Giving a basic structure to the series, Grave stated that the time between the IPL and CPL will be utilised for a shortened tour against South Africa. However, as revealed by him, CWI managing to squeeze in a T20 series during that time would depend on if the IPL franchises would be comfortable with many of their players being halted back in Windies when the final stages of preparation would be on.
"The plan as we are working on now is that the players would come home, they will have the weekend at home. Those that are in the Caribbean Premier League will head down to Trinidad on probably August 3 so it's a quick turnaround. CPL finishes on September 10. We hope very much that South Africa will follow immediately after that. Whether we can get the full tour in or we're going to have to look at a split tour between the Tests and the T20s, we don't know," Grave said.
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