South African cricket fans who were looking forward to going to the stadium to watch the Proteas play against England in a much-anticipated home Test series at the end of the year against the Old Enemy better rethink their plans.

Tickets were released for the Test series yesterday morning, with games scheduled for Wanderers in Johannesburg from 17 – 21 December 2026, SuperSport Park in Centurion from 26 – 30 December 2026, and Newlands in Cape Town from 3 – 7 January 2027.

Tickets for Newlands were reportedly sold out within seconds of going on sale at 9am, while the Grandstand at Centurion was also sold out within seconds, with only spots available on the grass banks.

There were more tickets available for the Test match at the Wanderers, but significant sections of the ground had also already been sold out for the match.

Cricket fans on social media claimed that the tickets had been sold ahead of time to travelling England fans and tour groups, with no tickets kept in reserve to be sold locally. Sources who spoke to The Common Sense confirmed that this was the case. 

The Common Sense contacted the game’s governing body in South Africa, Cricket South Africa (CSA), to determine whether it was the case that tickets for the matches had already been sold to English travelling fans or tour groups. Kirsty du Toit, CSA’s media manager, said: “All tickets are currently sold out. I will share further information as soon as it becomes available.”

By early yesterday afternoon, tickets for the Newlands match were on resale sites for over R4 000 for one ticket.

In general, the standard practice for highly anticipated matches or tournaments is to introduce a lottery or ballot system where people can indicate their interest in attending a match or tournament and then tickets are randomly allocated to fans. However, it seems that CSA decided to not do this, and to simply sell all tickets beforehand to English fans, with local fans left with the scraps.

While the national cricket side has been performing well of late, being the World Test Champions and reaching the knockout stages of various white-ball tournaments, fans will probably start questioning their loyalty to the Proteas when foreign fans are given preference over locals for matches in South Africa.