Johannesburg: Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the BCCI are in probe to finalise the Gandhi- Mandela series, a cricket series between both the countries dedicated to both countries’ legend Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, to be played in both countries within the next two years.
“India has really warmed up to the idea of making a sort of an icon series between South Africa and India. So we will play four Tests in India and they will come back in 2018 and will play the equivalent. We want to style it as the Mandela- Gandhi series. We are working on that now to develop the details of the icon series,” CSA Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat said during the launch of new kit which the South African cricket team will wear from next month in all three formats of the game.
“They are very sought after amongst all of the professional leagues, including the IPL. They are certainly capable of capturing the imagination of South Africa and the world,” Lorgat added.
Lorgat said CSA had focused on T20s in the past eighteen months and would now turn their attention on preparation for the World Twenty20 challenge in India in March next year.
Lorgat also reinforced CSA’s plans to develop cricket at lower levels to feed into the national side through its transformation plans to include more black players.
“We have become a bit more aggressive in the transformation space and we make no apologies for that it’s the right thing to do, for two reasons. There is a moral obligation to get things right and equally if we want to sustain ourselves as the number one Test team in the world we must draw from a much wider pool,” Lorgat concluded.
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(With PTI inputs)