It’s the perfect barometer of South Africa’s progress (or not) in the arena ... a return home one-day international series against India.
Expected to be played in boiling Western Cape high-summer conditions over the next few days - beginning in Paarl on Wednesday, 10:30 - the three-match hostilities represent the Proteas’ chance to avenge, or at very least improve significantly on, a rare bilateral humiliation on own soil.
On their last tour here in 2017/18, the Indians handed their hosts a 5-1 pounding, an experience last suffered by South Africa when southern hemisphere arch-rivals Australia toured in 2001/02 for an identical outcome.
