India's Home Season: Kolkata, Delhi Swap Tests Against West Indies, South Africa
Kolkata's Eden Gardens and Delhi's Arun Jaitley Stadium will swap their allocated Test matches against West Indies and South Africa respectively during India's upcoming home season, the BCCI announced on Monday. While Delhi was set to host the opening Test against South Africa from November 14-18, it will now host the second Test against West Indies starting October 10. Though the BCCI release doesn't state the reason for the venue swap, it is understood that air pollution levels in mid-November in the National Capital Region become a health hazard like it happened during a Test match against Sri Lanka few years back.
The Sri Lankan fielders were wearing masks and a few reportedly suffered from breathing problems.
It is understood that BCCI's Cricket Operations team collated the AQI data over the past few years and decided that venue swap is a viable option.
India's home season starts with two WTC Tests against West Indies, starting October 2 in Ahmedabad, followed by the Delhi Test.
India then play a full three format series against South Africa starting with two Tests, followed by three ODIs and five T20 Internationals across various Indian venues.
While Kolkata hosts the opening Test against the Proteas, Guwahati's Barsapara Stadium will become the latest Test venue as the second Test will be played from November 22 to 26.
The ODIs will be held at Ranchi (November 30), Raipur (December 3) and Visakhapatnam (December 6). The five T20Is will be held at Cuttack (December 9), New Chandigarh (December 11), Dharamsala (December 14), Lucknow (December 17) and Ahmedabad (December 19).
Meanwhile Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) has expressed its inability to host the women's ODI series against Australia starting September 14, which was supposed to serve as a pre-cursor to the 50-over World Cup starting September 30.
The first two matches of the series will now be played in Mullanpur (New Chandigarh) and the third match in New Delhi.
Men's A series vs Australia and South Africa
The fringe players in Indian men's team set-up will have their hands full with BCCI hosting both Australia A and South Africa A for four 'unofficial Tests' and six List A games.
Both the touring sides will play two 'Tests' and three List A games each. Australia A series will happen in Lucknow and Kanpur while Bengaluru's COE will host the Proteas A team for the 'unofficial Tests'. Rajkot will host three ODIs.
Australia A Tests will be in Lucknow from September 16-19 and 23-26 giving chance to the Test specialists to get into groove for the West Indies games.
Ditto for SA A series, which will be a shadow tour before the main event.
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