Any possibility of South Africa playing in the West Indies later this year will largely be dependent on the IPL and the lifting of travel restrictions that will allow the team to travel to the Caribbean.
That is the word from Cricket West Indies CEO Johnny Grave, who remains hopeful that the tour will happen in some form of the other. If Grave has his way, the West Indies, who are currently engaged in a bio-secure three-Test #Raisethebat series in England, could be hosting South Africa as early as September.
However, he concedes Grave that there are significant obstacles to surmount.
“We have had three calls in the last seven days with our counterparts in South Africa. The plan as we are working on now is that the players will come home a week Wednesday. They will have the weekend at home. Those that are in the Caribbean Premier League will head down to Trinidad on probably the third of August; so a very quick turnaround. The CPL will then start in mid-August and go through to the 10th of September, and we hope very much that then South Africa will follow immediately after that,” Grave said while speaking on Mason & Guest in Barbados on Tuesday.
“Whether we can get the full tour in or whether we have a split tour between the Tests and T20s we don’t know.
“India are trying to get the IPL towards the back end of September – either in India which, I know is their preferred choice or in the UAE as a back-up choice, but there has been no announcement on that yet. We very much hope that South Africa will be able to come here in September for either a T20 only tour or a Test only tour, at the very least.
“And it will be dependent on the IPL. South Africa have a number of their Test players who have IPL contracts whereas this current Test team, we don’t have any IPL players in.”
Grave said the West Indies would be unable to play Test cricket during the IPL season.
“South Africa has made that very clear to us. They’ve got a commitment to their players to allow them to play in the IPL. So, at this stage we hope that that’s the case but at this stage I can’t confirm, with no flights between South Africa and the UK, which is the obvious route for them to travel,” he said.
“At the moment, it’s not something that South Africa has been able to confirm to us. But, we are talking to them regularly and we hope for good news soon.”
South Africa last visited the Caribbean in 2016 for a tri-nation series that also involved Australia.