A ‘jealous’ Temba Bavuma watched the Ashes action unfold in Perth on Friday morning and wondered why South Africa get to a play just a two-Test series against India despite being the reigning World Champions in the traditional format.

Bavuma, who led South Africa to the WTC title earlier this year, said the brief series does little justice to the contest between two of the strongest red-ball sides in world cricket.

“We woke up this morning to watch the Ashes. We watched with a bit of jealousy, knowing that they were playing five Tests. They’ll be going at each other,” Bavuma said, clearly unimpressed that a champion team gets to play a short series.

“Hopefully, not too far in the future, but more in the near future, we’ll go back to play four tests against India.” The South African skipper has been in the business long enough to know that players hardly have any say in the “mapping of schedules“. The number of Tests in a series is directly proportional to financial health of a cricket nation.

Hence the Ashes, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (India vs Australia) and the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy (India vs England) are five-match series because of their commercial viability.

But all other nations that India play against are generally two-Test series, whether it is South Africa, New Zealand, West Indies or Bangladesh.

With PTI Inputs.

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