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24-Mar-2014 06:16:00 GMT
West Indies in South Africa 2014-15

Port Elizabeth Set for Host Boxing Day

Johannesburg: St George's Park in Port Elizabeth is set to regain the Boxing Day Test, Graeme Smith revealed at the post-match presentation following his team's victory over Australia.

Although not full for this Test, there was a livelier atmosphere - helped, in part, by the famous band - than Kingsmead in Durban managed to produce when handed the Boxing Day encounter that was reinstated last year after being ditched in 2012 in favour of Twenty20 internationals.

Most recently that involved Jacques Kallis' farewell to Test cricket, against India, but there were relatively small crowds across all five days despite the final appearance of one the game's greats. Even when the gates were thrown open on the final day the crowd only reached 7000 at a venue that can hold 25,000. Across the first three days there was an average crowd of 9000, the best at Kingsmead in recent years, but still disappointing for a festive season Test.

It will be St George's Park's first Boxing Day Test since 2007 when it hosted West Indies in a match that the visitors won. West Indies are scheduled to tour South Africa for a three-Test tour, the first of which will be played in Centurion from December 17. Newlands will host the new year's Test after missing out in 2014.

West Indies tour of South Africa schedule:

Dec 10-12 : Warm-up game - South African Invitation XI v West Indians, Benoni
Dec 17-21 : 1st Test, Centurion
Dec 26-30 : 2nd Test, Port Elizabeth
Jan 02-06 : 3rd Test, Cape Town
Jan 09 : 1st T20I, Cape Town (day/night)
Jan 11 : 2nd T20I, Johannesburg
Jan 16 : 1st ODI, Durban (day/night)
Jan 18 : 2nd ODI, Johannesburg
Jan 21 : 3rd ODI, East London (day/night)
Jan 25 : 4th ODI, Port Elizabeth
Jan 28 : 5th ODI, Centurion


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