The Proteas will play three Tests, including a Boxing Day Test at the MCG, and three ODIs on their tour of Australia in December and January.

The first Test will take place in Brisbane from 17-21 December followed by a first Australia-SA Boxing Day Test in Melbourne and New Year’s Test in Sydney in 13 years.

The three ODIs will be played in Hobart, Sydney and Perth in January, but the dates remain unconfirmed after an “11th-hour” request from Cricket South Africa to Cricket Australia to have them reconsidered.

The tour forms part of a marathon five-month schedule that will thrust Australia into at least 27 games in front of home supporters, rising to 29 if they reach the T20 World Cup final in Melbourne on 13 November.

The unseasonably early start in August is to accommodate two previously postponed ODI series against Zimbabwe and New Zealand.

In the Zimbabwe series, twice delayed by Covid-19, all three games will be at Riverway Stadium in Townsville in Queensland from 28 August.

New Zealand will play their three matches at an unfamiliar North Queensland venue, Cazalys Stadium in Cairns, 18 years after it was last used for international cricket.

Australia will then play three T20Is in India in September followed by home T20I series against the West Indies and England that will precede the T20 World Cup.

A three-match ODI series against England has been shoehorned into October, before Australia’s five Tests are played in the space of 40 days.

International cricket will return to Perth for the first time since 2019, with the city’s new stadium to host the first of two Tests against the West Indies from 30 November with the second a day-night match in Adelaide.

No room has been found for the postponed fixtures against Afghanistan after the scheduled inaugural Test between the nations was called off last year due to the Taliban takeover, which cast doubt over that country’s commitment to women’s cricket.

© Agence France-Presse

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