Has South Africa Cost It’s Place For ODI WC 2023?
Australia and South Africa (Image Source: Twitter)
On 13 July 2022, the Australian Cricket Board confirmed that the South Africa Cricket Board had cut short their upcoming tour of Australia. The scheduled ODI series has been withdrawn from next January. South Africa’s Test team is expected to tour Australia for a three-match series starting in Brisbane on December 17.
However, they have withdrawn the white-ball series as they requested alternative dates. During that time, the South Africa Cricket Board will organize a new T20 League with six new teams. Hence, the Board wanted its contracted player’s availability in that tournament. Cricket Australia failed to manage any alternative date.
It hurts South Africa’s chances of direct qualification for the 2023 men’s ODI World Cup
Speaking about the cancellation of this series, it will hurt South Africa as they are struggling at 11th position with 49 points. They will find it tough to qualify for the upcoming 50-over format World Cup directly in India, in 2023. After withdrawing from this series, South Africa is scheduled to play two ODI series against England and India respectively before the cut-off date in May.
Cricket Australia also issued a statement regarding the revised schedule. It said: “Unfortunately, due to the congested international schedule including the Men’s T20 World Cup, there are no alternative dates available,” However, South Africa Cricket’s decision to withdraw this bilateral series for a new T20 League develops some worrying signs as it points out on the less interest of ODI bilateral series in the current situation.
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Apart from Test cricket, the One Day International series is also in danger as Cricket Boards are tending towards T20 Leagues only. The Proteas effectively forfeited the series and they also agreed to award 30 competition points to Australia as they denied those matches. Only official approval from the Governing Body of Cricket is pending as of now.
Speaking of the future of bilateral series, the Governing body of Cricket needs to take massive action to save both the Test and ODI format. Popularity regarding T20 Leagues needs to be controlled to save the basic formats of this game for the future.
