Can India Attain Immortality Against South Africa In The 2023/2024 Freedom Trophy Test Series

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Has India’s time to finally, finally, finally win a Test series in South Africa, that country’s final cricketing frontier?

The team from the subcontinent is one series win away from immortality alongside Australia following the commencement of the 2023/2024 Freedom Trophy at SuperSport Park in Centurion. The all-too-brief series will conclude in the New Year’s Test at Newlands Cricket Stadium in Cape Town.


At the time of this article’s publication, they will taken on the South Africans in three T20Is and three ODIs. For the record the former ended 1-1, while the latter saw the visitors triumph 2- and rather convincingly. If they triumph in the Test series, it would put them in the incredible echelon of “clocking the game”, so to speak.

India would be the second team in men’s cricket history to win home-and-away against every Test nation in the long format of the game, One Day Internationals, T20s as well as winning the ICC Champions Trophy, the T20 World Cup as well as the Cricket World Cup! However, the Baggy Green, the undisputed kings of cricket, now also boast a World Test Championship, though that one is not really valued highly considering the farcical nature of how Test cricket schedule is favoured towards the Big Three.

South Africa in Test matches has proven to be a tough nut to crack in five days for the Indians judging by their record. The last time out, they were surprisingly beaten 2-1 in the 2021/22 season.

A Jacques Kallis masterclass in 2010/2011 at Newlands saved the Proteas in the third and final Test of that tour, resulting in a 1-all draw. This was the closest India has come to attaining the scalp it now wants above all others. Every other tour, India has come up short, unfortunately.

South Africa is not exactly in its healthiest state since reunification in 1992, which has left the door wide open for the visitors. I think we are in for two rather interesting Test matches… though we should have four, but that is another story for another day.


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