England’s Twenty20 series against South Africa that begins in Cardiff on Wednesday kicks off the run-in to next year’s World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.

The only issue is that just five months from the start of that tournament in February the schedule has yet to be released by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

England have 12 T20s until they start that campaign, with these three against the Proteas followed by another trio of matches in Ireland and then six more split across tours of New Zealand and Sri Lanka either side of Christmas.

Given England have selected a shadow squad captained by Jacob Bethell for the trip to Dublin next week, there is added significance on the games this week against the runners-up at the last World Cup in the Caribbean and United States.

However, a

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