Melbourne: Cricket Australia (CA) has announced the 2019-20 home fixtures for Australia and the lists feature series against New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lankan men’s teams. Meanwhile, the women’s team will host India, England, and Sri Lanka.
“Scheduling international cricket is challenging in that nine of the ten major cricketing countries have seasons similar to ours, so working with them to find space in the calendar to fulfill our obligations to the ICC Future Tours Program (FTP) is a juggling act,” cricket.com.au quoted CA’s Head of Cricket Operations, Peter Roach as saying on Tuesday.
As a result of this schedule, it will be the first time in 41 years that Australia’s international summer of men’s cricket will extend into late March as the team takes on New Zealand in the Chappell-Hadlee ODI series. Australia will play a total of 28 international matches across ten venues in this time period, which also includes the Women’s T20 World Cup.
The Gabba (Cricket Ground in Brisbane) will host the first Test match of the summer when Australia takes on Pakistan. Two day-night Tests have also been scheduled against Pakistan in Adelaide (from November 29) and New Zealand (from December 12).
Cricket Australia also honoured its commitment to Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) as they have decided to tour India for three ODIs mid-January next year. “The long-range FTP had three separate limited-overs series scheduled between India, New Zealand and Australia. When the countries started working through the detail, it was clear that there was not enough space for each series at the proposed times,” Peter Roach said. “CA took the position that while January was our preference for these ODI matches, there are times we need to honour our commitments to work in the greater context of international cricket scheduling,” he added.
Full 2019-20 International Fixtures
Women’s T20s v Sri Lanka: September 29, 30 and October 2 Women’s ODIs v Sri Lanka: October 5, 7 and 9.Men’s T20s v Sri Lanka: October 27, 30 and November 1 Men’s T20s v Pakistan: November 3, 5 and 8 Men’s Test Series v Pakistan: November 21-25, November 29-December 3 (D/N).
Men’s Test Series v New Zealand: December 12-16 (D/N), December 26-30, January 3-7 Women’s T20 tri-series
January 31: India v England
February 1: Australia v England
February 2: Australia v India
February 7: India v England
February 8: Australia v India
February 9: Australia v England
February 12: Tri-series Final
Men’s ODIs v New Zealand: March 13 (D/N), 15 and 20 (D/N) Australia is also scheduled to visit South Africa and Bangladesh for limited overs fixtures in February according to the Future Tours Programme.