CSA’s Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith, on Wednesday (February 24) said that India and England’s cricketing boards have been supportive of future tours with South Africa unlike Australia.

Earlier this month, Australia pulled out of the South Africa tour, citing “unacceptable” risk to the touring party amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The turn of events saw CSA expressing its “extreme disappointment” publically and also lodged a complaint against Cricket Australia with the ICC.

However, ahead of the fresh scheduling for the national team, Smith has disclosed that his discussions with India and England have been progressive.

"Myself and Sourav go a long way back, and we've had a number of conversations. India in particular have been very supportive of us. Hopefully in the next cycle we'll have a number of tours against India that are pretty close to being finalised, actually. [ECB chief executive] Tom Harrison and the ECB have been brilliant as well,” Cricbuzz quoted Smith as saying.

“Even the way Tom handled the situation from behind the scenes [in December] with England was good. Those matches have already been rescheduled [though not announced]. There's been a joint resolution and an understanding of that," he added.

On Cricket Australia, Smith said he has always faced ‘difficulties’ while negotiating with them. He also urged the member nations to support each other in these testing times.

"Australia has been the one that's stood out in terms of difficulties. We never found the same sense of working together that we did with the other two. So there's things that need to be improved and we've got to ask some hard questions of them and challenge them. That's important for world cricket," he stated.

"It's important that the members get together and support each other and try and find ways to get as much done as we possibly can. That added to the disappointment of Australia. Everyone [else] we've worked with has had that mindset and understood that. My sense is that Australia didn't, and that's what let us down. No matter what we offered them I doubt we would have been able to get them over the line," he concluded.