Border cricket is ready and waiting for the Proteas to return to East London, with the country’s premier cricket team set to face off against Zimbabwe in the first game of their three-match T20 series at Buffalo Park on Tuesday.
It will be the first match that the Proteas have played in the city since last year’s clash in October against Bangladesh, and fans will be excited to see their cricketing heroes once again.
“We are ready for them. We are fortunate that we got to host the semifinals and final of the Africa Cup T20 competition a week ago, that gave us an opportunity to check our state of readiness,” said Border cricket CEO Thando Booi.
“So even if the teams arrived tomorrow we would be able to host a fantastic match.
“The preparations overall have been going well. We have been working hard on the field, which is the most important thing to have ready.
“But we have also been working hard to make sure that we advertise, the posters and billboards are up, fliers are being handed out and we are aggressively pushing on radio stations as well, so everything is going smoothly.”
The match will come hot on the heels of the completed three-match one-day series against the same opponents, which ends on Saturday.
The first match was a stroll in the park for the Proteas, claiming a five-wicket win, while the second took place this past Wednesday. The final match is on Saturday.
“We are pushing to make sure that we get a good crowd. It is a Tuesday, but with the match starting at 6pm and school holidays we feel we can still bring in a big crowd,” said Booi.
“We have always said that the people of East London and Buffalo City at large, they want to see these games, they want to see the Proteas, so that fact that they are coming back, irrespective of who they are facing, people will come in their numbers because they want to see their heroes and experience what they normally see on TV.”
This will be just the second ever T20 match held at Buffalo Park.
The first was a loss against New Zealand in 2012.
Since then the time between the Proteas returning to the city has been steadily dropping as the West Indies arrived in 2015 and then Bangladesh in 2017, so hopefully this trend will continue in the coming years.
“We have been working around the clock to ensure that we got more content and that we get these matches at the very least on a yearly basis,” said Booi.
“We are working on exciting programmes that will help us make this a reality and I am confident that we will be able to host Proteas games every year.”
The Proteas are expected to arrive in the city on Sunday. However, no official confirmation has been made yet.
For tickets for the match or more information contact Border cricket on 043-743-7757.— DDC..