- Cricket: Summer cut to five Tests
Canberra’s tree-lined Manuka Oval is unlikely to get another Test for several years
Canberra won’t be getting another Test next year — or any year in the foreseeable future — because a Test has been lopped off the summer calendar.
While the nation toasts its capital’s fine debut this week, cricket is farewelling its familiar six-Test summer because cricket’s custodians are winding back Test cricket to give it more “context”.
Less is more, as the administrators say the new pared-back Test championship will make the long format more relevant with fans.
So next year, for the first time in more than a decade, a non-Ashes summer will feature only five Tests. (There were four Tests in 2014-15 to allow time to host the 2015 World Cup.)
After opening the season with three T20s against Sri Lanka, the Australians will play two Tests against Pakistan and three against New Zealand, with more T20s and ODIs sprinkled through the summer. That’s the new normal — five-Test summers are locked in all the way to 2022-23.
That’s bad news for Canberra after it made such a success of its Test debut this week.
It’s also not good for Hobart and perhaps Brisbane as well.
Rather than excising T20 internationals — there are six next season — the administrators have jettisoned one Test a season.
When the long-term schedule was released in June last year, the ICC said trimming Tests would help bring “context and meaning to bilateral cricket” via the new Test championship.
“The Test series league will see nine teams play six series over two years — three home and three away — with each having a minimum of two Tests and a maximum of five and all matches being played over five days culminating in a World Test League Championship Final,” the ICC said.
This winter’s Ashes are the first Tests to count towards the championship. Cricket Australia not only endorsed the change, it embraced the decision to scale back the Test program.
“It is with great enthusiasm that Cricket Australia endorses the new World Test Championship,” former chief executive James Sutherland said at the time.
“Together with other member countries we are confident that this will grow interest in the international game — and our team is very much looking forward to launching the World Test Championship with our 2019 Ashes series in England.”
When the diminution of Test cricket was announced last June, it was missed by many whose attention was on matters football.
But the decision is hitting home now Canberra has hosted its successful maiden Test.
Any thought that Canberra could build on this week’s very well received event has run head on into the scaled-back program.
Cricket ACT chief executive James Allsopp understands that the bigger picture precludes Canberra from becoming a regular Test venue.
“We’re really confident that we’ll be having a lot more international cricket here in the coming years,” Allsopp told
The Australian yesterday, but he admitted another Test was “unlikely in the next four years”.
Allsopp was basking in a post-Test glow after Manuka Oval received rave reviews for its tree-ringed setting, its facilities and especially its pitch.
“We’re really proud of head groundsman Brad van Dam and all the ground staff,” Allsopp said.
“We knew we only had one crack at this and we knew we had to do it well.
“We couldn’t be happier. The script couldn’t be any more perfect. We’d love another Test next year but we understand the reality of the schedule.
“But we’re very keen to host Test matches in the future when the schedule allows.”
Until then, Manuka is expected to be allocated women’s internationals, BBL matches and the occasional ODI.
Allsopp said talks with Cricket Australia and the ACT government were progressing well as the parties looked to strike a new four-year international fixtures agreement for the venue.
Canberra had appeared a good fit for the one-off Afghanistan Test in November 2020, but that might now instead go to Test-starved Hobart.
Tasmania hasn’t had a Test since Australia’s innings and 80-run loss to South Africa in 2016.
Bellerive would most likely return to the Test calendar next year only at the Gabba’s expense, as Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide are all locked in, and CA would be keen to return to Perth’s Optus Stadium, the scene of Australia’s only win of the Border-Gavaskar series.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...s/news-story/0d655343a208ab20385588b62a14f4fe
There we go, confirmed.
Only the total f**kheads at CA would look at this summer and go 'hmmm, you know what we need - fewer tests and more T20'.
I think this basically kills any chance Canberra or Hobart have of ever hosting another test match.
In case you missed it when a few of us were discussing it in the match-day thread, the schedule for next summer is slated as:
- 5 tests (2 vs Pak, 3 vs NZ)
- 3 ODIs (3 vs NZ)
- 6 T20Is (3 vs Pak, 3 vs SL)
And then we jet off to India in January 2020 for an ODI series because, hey, we can't have the BCCI not making money by doing something like playing matches in Australia during the summer.
I hope everyone likes the Big Bash because that's all there will be to watch for most of next year.
What a dark day for cricket in this country.
