India women's cricket team will tour South Africa for a series spanning all three formats, with the Board of Control for Cricket in India announcing the schedule on 9 November. The tour includes one Test, three One-Day Internationals and three Twenty20 Internationals, beginning with the red-ball match and ending with the final T20I at the end of December. The schedule has been released in full, with dates, start times and venues fixed for every fixture.
Smriti Mandhana has been named full-time captain of the Test side for the first time. Her appointment marks a change in her role in the longer format, and the squads for all three formats have been announced alongside it. Deepti Sharma has been named vice-captain in the Test and ODI squads, while Shafali Verma has been named vice-captain in the T20I squad. The reporting does not give a reason for the change in Mandhana's role in the Test side, and no further explanation has been offered.
The only Test will be played at St George's Oval in Gqeberha, from 9 to 12 December, with play starting at 1:30 pm IST. The match is the opening fixture of the tour and will be the first longer-format assignment under Mandhana's full-time leadership. Because it runs for four days, it will be the most extended contest of the series, and it sets the tone for the rest of the tour.
The three ODIs follow in the Western Cape and the Free State. The first match will be played on 16 December at Boland Park in Paarl, the second on 19 December at Newlands in Cape Town, and the third on 22 December at Mangaung Oval in Bloemfontein. The ODIs begin at 1:30 pm, with some later games scheduled for 5:30 pm. Each of the three venues is in a different city, so the squad will travel between Paarl, Cape Town and Bloemfontein over a span of a week.
The limited-overs leg then moves to Gauteng and North West. The first T20I will be played on 26 December at Willowmoore Park in Benoni. The second and third T20Is will both be held at Potchefstroom on 29 and 30 December. According to the schedule, the T20Is start at the 9:30 pm local-time slot, which places the shorter format at the close of each day's play.
Taken together, the fixtures cover seven matches across three formats and several South African cities, from Gqeberha on the Eastern Cape coast to Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Benoni and Potchefstroom. The dates and venues are as announced by the BCCI, and the squads and vice-captaincy appointments are now set for the tour. The fixture list gives the team a clear run of matches over the holiday period, with the final T20I played on 30 December.
Source: newsnationtv.com
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