Our Bureau
New Delhi
The South African cricket board has decided to revise its plans regarding the practice sessions that they planned before the World Test Championship Final. As the revised schedule for the Indian Premier League has come out and the date of the final match of the tournament is pushed from 26th May to 3rd June now, the South African board has also decided to move its date of practice forward.
The South African players were supposed to return back to their nation on 26th May earlier, as they were going to start their practice sessions for the World Test Championship Final against Australia that will begin on 11th June 2025. But Cricket South Africa’s Director of Cricket Enoch Nkwe has adjusted their preparation plans and has allowed South African players to compete in the remainder of the IPL.
In a recent media report, the Director of Cricket of CSA said, “Correction – the squad will resume training for the game on June 3rd. The matter is being discussed higher up than me. At ground level, we are focusing on preps for the WTC final.”
While earlier he had given the statement that said, “One thing we’ve made clear, and we are finalising it with the IPL and the BCCI, is that we are sticking to our original plan when it comes to WTC preparations with May 26 being the latest for the Test guys to come back.”
This new update from South Africa’s end comes as a relief for many franchises in IPL as many of them have key South African players and their absence would have ruined their championship aspirations. There were 8 players currently playing in the league that were also the part of South Africa’s Test squad for WTC final – Kagiso Rabada (Gujarat Titans), Lungi Ngidi (Royal Challengers Bengaluru), Tristan Stubbs (Delhi Capitals), Aiden Markram (Lucknow Super Giants), Ryan Rickelton (Mumbai Indians), Corbin Bosch (Mumbai Indians), Marco Jansen (Punjab Kings) and Wiaan Mulder (Sunrisers Hyderabad).
South Africa was supposed to play a warm-up match against Zimbabwe in their preparations leading up to the WTC Final match against the defending champions Australia. But with the revised fixture there is no guarantee whether this match against Zimbabwe will be played or not.
