Cricket South Africa Ludicrous Test Dates Monday - Friday?

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Genius Move or The Dumbest Move Ever

Cricket South Africa has recently released their revenue figures for the 2025/26 season and they are not looking great. That is kind of an understatement as the losses were R440 million, but in the context this was expected and has to be seen as part of a 4 year cycle. The 4 year cycle actually raised a profit of R493 million so even though this last year impacted the books the 4 year cycle was still profitable.

The reality is any home test series that does not feature the top 3 test high revenue playing nations being India, England and Australia then those series will be a revenue loss due to television broadcast rights being much lower.

As a business model this is high risk and even though most test matches create a loss they still have to accept these fixtures. The cost of the touring team with hotels and flights is all covered by the host nation and why these test series are normally only two or three tests only. The big money is made when India or England visit as the number of supporters who travel with the team is significant along with the television rights being far higher.

The lack of test cricket played over the last 12 month sis a major concern with no test cricket being played at home. The first test cricket match played was two weeks ago with Australia on a 3 test tour currently. This will be followed by Bangladesh which will be another major loss and then England touring over Christmas and New Year which will recoup some of those losses.

Test cricket for those that do not know is played over 5 consecutive days and usually starts on a Wednesday or Thursday which then should guarantee a bumper crowd over the weekend.

The current test match being the 2nd test versus Australia started on a Sunday so the bulk of the game is being played during the week when spectators are working and will not be attending. The irony of this match is the first two days were lost to rain so the entire match is being played on working days.

Making matters worse is the Bangladesh test is being played between Monday and Friday so no weekend days for the spectators to attend. This is not normal and I would have no clue who thought this was a good idea. If you are going to lose revenue this is a guaranteed way of having no spectators buying match tickets. the grounds will be empty so this series is relying fully on television rights. Whoever is the brainchild behind this needs to be removed as they are clueless and have no previous history with cricket or they would never be doing this. This sounds like a DEI hire and the entire Cricket Board is no different.

Maybe the television rights offered more money for these days as there would be no other live cricket on and possibly the Indian television stations were the only ones interested due to how big the cricket betting is in India. Any other reason would make no commercial sense and I am just guessing coming to my own conclusions on this.

Cricket south Africa has already penciled in a loss for the 2026/2027 season
banking on a profit for the 2027/2028 season as that would include the revenue from the hosted One Day World Cup. The losses this year also include upgrades spent on the various venues that will be hosting that World Cup.