Sri Lanka and South Africa cricket boards are in talks to play a two-Test series in South Africa in December

• Final decision only in another 2-3 weeks’ time, says CEO

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said that they were in discussions with Cricket South Africa (CSA) about the possibility of the Sri Lanka Test team making a two-Test tour there in December, which will be part of the ICC Test Championships.

“We are engaged in discussions with the South African Cricket Board and anyway according to the Future Tours Program (FTP) we are supposed to play two Test matches of the Test Championship,” said Sri Lanka Cricket CEO Ashley de Silva.

“According to the discussions which we have been having we are supposed to play the first Test on Boxing Day and then after that the second Test match. For the moment we are only having discussions. Tentatively we have made some dates that we are going to play two Test matches and a warm-up game but nothing is finalised yet,” he said.

Enlightening further, De Silva said: “We are assessing how the situation in South Africa is. We have asked for their health guidelines and all that and we are waiting for them to share it with us. We also have to monitor how England who are going ahead before us are playing their matches. Based on that we will have to put forward all our papers to the Board and get their approval.”

“England will be completely different to ours because they will be in quarantine for 14 days before they go and they will take a charter flight and all that. When it comes to us we are playing the LPL so we will be going there directly after the LPL. We would have to see what would be the quarantine period and we would also be going from a bubble to a bubble,” continued De Silva.

Except for Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Thirimanne and Vishwa Fernando, all the other Test players will be involved in the LPL. However these players would be training at the High Performance Centre at Khettarama.

“We have also to see how we are going to take the players across. We have to look at the costs of a chartered flight. All that is being assessed currently and we will take a decision only in about another two to three weeks’ time. The tour is not finalised yet, we’ve been having discussions only,” De Silva said.

ESPNcricinfo reported that the South Africa Government had agreed to waive the normal requirements for visitors from countries deemed ‘high risk’ in terms of Covid-19 infection and allow the England squad to train during their quarantine period.

England are due to make a tour of South Africa from 17 November and play three ODIs and three T20Is against South Africa at Cape Town and Paarl.

Due to the current situation in the country where the spread of COVID-19 is preventing any cricket from being played here, SLC is of the view that it is a better option to send the team overseas and for the cricketers to play some cricket.

“We are exploring that possibility starting with the South African tour but we’ll have to assess the situation,” said De Silva.  

The national cricketers have had no international cricket since the first week of March with inbound tours by England, South Africa, India and Bangladesh getting postponed due to the pandemic.

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