CSA boss upbeat about Proteas’ World Cup qualification after scrapping series

The Proteas’ quest to achieve automatic qualification for the 2023 Cricket World Cup became more difficult on Wednesday when the country’s board agreed to forfeit a series against Australia.

Cricket South Africa (CSA) withdrew from a scheduled three-match World Cup Super League series in Australia in January in order to have their best players available for a domestic Twenty20 league.

The matches had been scheduled for January 12, 14 and 17 in Hobart, Sydney and Perth.

South Africa are languishing in 11th place in the Super League, with the top eight qualifying automatically for the World Cup in India next year.

Proteas’ points loss

The loss of the 30 points available for the series means South Africa will almost certainly have to win their remaining series against England and India, plus two postponed matches against the Netherlands, to avoid playing in a qualifying tournament.

“As difficult as this decision has been for CSA, the long-term sustainability of our new T20 League is reliant on having all our domestic players available for this exciting new addition to the CSA calendar,” CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki said in a statement.

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Cricket Australia announced earlier on Wednesday that it had been unable to accommodate South Africa’s request to change the dates of the series.

A backlog of postponed fixtures from the pandemic meant there was no window available to reschedule before the qualification cut-off in May.

‘Immense disappointment’

Moseki said the matches had originally been scheduled for 2020 but had been postponed because of the pandemic.

“CSA is always keen on honouring its bilateral commitments,” said Moseki. “CSA offered four options … unfortunately, and to our disappointment, none of these were acceptable to Cricket Australia.

“CSA has agreed that the International Cricket Council award Australia the competition points. We are confident that the Proteas will garner the requisite points through the remaining games to secure automatic qualification to the World Cup (in India).”

Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley said it was “disappointing” but the three-Test series against South Africa in December and January would go ahead as planned.