There is a legitimate argument to suggest that South Africa will be playing the most important series in their history when they take the field at Lord’s on August 17 for the first of three Tests against a resurgent England. They could be playing for Test cricket’s survival in their country.

Cricket lovers outside the ‘big three’ Test nations are banking on the Proteas to fly the flag for the ‘small seven’ and provide further proof that Test cricket is strong and viable outside of India and the Ashes – and can survive the pervasive world of T20. In January, South Africa will become the fourth country in which IPL-owned teams will play against each other, spanning five months of next year.

The South African squad has been awash with distractions for three years, primarily from an antiquated and self-serving administration which placed the players’ welfare and that of the overall game comically low on its priority list. Over 70 professional playing contracts were lost in a restructuring of the domestic game last year and even the internationally contracted players were uncertain of their futures.

Last month Cricket South Africa’s financial woes were finally sorted when IPL franchises bought all six teams in the new T20 league which is set to begin in January, but even the most single-minded cricketers are aware of the potential ramifications of what is effectively a ‘mini IPL’ season dominating the prime month of the season.

CSA’s decision not to honour their scheduled ODI series in Australia in January, and to forfeit a potential 30 points towards the World Cup Super League, came as a deep shock to the players. CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki admitted that captain Temba Bavuma and coach Mark Boucher were “devastated” when he told them the news.

However well Bavuma and his players understand the financial imperatives of the decision, they are understandably of the view that the mess was of the administrators’ making and for them to clean it up by seriously jeopardising the team’s chances of playing in next year’s World Cup was the worst sort of hypocrisy. CSA has subsequently cleared a window in June next year for Bavuma to take his team to Harare for the secondary qualifying tournament alongside the likes of Ireland, the Netherlands, Scotland, UAE and hosts Zimbabwe.

If CSA is prepared to risk sacrificing a place at the World Cup for the new league and their wealthy ‘partners’ from the IPL, how much worth might they attach to a two-match Test series?

“For years FICA [Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations] has been imploring the ICC to properly manage the scheduling conflict between domestic T20 events and bilateral cricket,” says SA Cricketers’ Association (SACA) chief executive, Andrew Breetzke. “We argued that a failure to do so would negatively impact bilateral cricket. They failed to do so, and we have now reached that point.

“Countries are setting their own windows for their T20 leagues and they will generate more revenue than bilateral cricket, in some cases – including SA – staving off financial ruin. Bilateral cricket will suffer, as is evidenced by the ODI series in Australia.”

“The ICC has scheduled a world event every year for the next eight years which makes the rest of the international schedule unworkable. The only three-match Test series involve one member of the ‘big three’ and the only series with more than three matches are between the big three. The rest of the Test playing nations will only play two-Test series [against each other].

“As things stand now, it is just a matter of time – maybe a decade – before the ‘small seven’ countries stop playing Test cricket other than the occasional exhibition Test,” Breetzke adds, gloomily. The already highly imperfect World Test Championship, he says, will simply fade away.

[breakout id=”0″][/breakout]

Unless.

Unless South Africa beat England to put one foot in the WTC final at Lord’s next year. Unless the ‘small seven’ continue to win against the ‘big three’, as Sri Lanka did against Australia in Galle last month. Unless the ‘big three’ are made to realise that their domination of the shrinking window for bilateral Test series is not just self-serving but, ultimately, self-defeating. Unless they really believe the format can survive on a diet of India and the Ashes alone.

The prospect of the McCullum/Stokes ‘new’ England coming up against Dean Elgar’s gravelly discipline and the pace of Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje in three Test matches is enticing. The thought that such contests may no longer take place a decade from now is beyond bleak.

Suggestions that the ICC needs to ‘intervene’ to assure the future of Test cricket are misleading because it is simply the administrative arm of a private members club which is dominated by India, England and Australia. It is they who will have to change. South Africa beat India in a Test series seven months ago, they play England now and Australia at the end of the year. It is their chance to prove they can disrupt the status quo.

This piece was originally written for issue 59 of Wisden Cricket Monthly, which contains a bumper England v South Africa Test series preview.