Cape Town to host two Tests in 2011-12

Cape Town will host two Test matches in the South African summer, CSA announced on Friday. The 2011-12 season sees South Africa play host to Australia and Sri Lanka. Australia will play only two Tests, one in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg, instead of the usual three, two Twenty20 internationals and three ODIs in a shortened tour in October and November.

Sri Lanka, who have not visited South Africa since 2002, will play three Tests and five ODIs over December and January with the Christmas and New Year's Tests remaining at their traditional homes of Durban and Cape Town.

"Unfortunately time constraints prevent us from playing more than two Tests against Australia this time around," CSA chief executive Gerald Majola said. "The aim is to play a four-match Test series when Australia next tour in February and March of 2014. This will make up for the extra Test not being played on this year's tour."

Despite the culling of a Test from the series, Majola said that "Test cricket remains in our view the ultimate pinnacle of the game." South Africa were thought to have reduced the number of Tests because of their domestic teams' participation in the Champions League T20, but on Wednesday, Tony Irish, chief executive of the South African Cricketers' Association confirmed to ESPNcricinfo that the CLT20 was "not a point of discussion" when the fixtures were confirmed.

The ODIs against Sri Lanka will be spread over the country's smaller venues with Paarl, East London, Bloemfontein and Kimberley all hosting a match. The series will culminate in Johannesburg on January 22, before South Africa head to New Zealand.

South Africa were toying with the idea of hosting West Indies for an ODI series in late January but the fixtures were not compulsory according to the current Future Tours Programme that runs to completion in April 2012. That series looks unlikely given the schedule.