Australian summers unrecognisable

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2026/mar/25/test-cricket-schedule-australian-summers-unrecognisable

T

his has long been on the way, and here it is. Test season, the centrepiece of Australia’s summer, will next time around consist of four matches played over four weekends, not starting until the second week of December and done a week into January. CricketAustralia will instead claim to have expanded the schedule to seven Tests, but their tropical excursion against Bangladesh is in August, and the pink-ball sideshow masquerading as the 150th anniversary Test will have half its overs in March darkness. Both are distant islands to the summer mainland. Unlike most cricket countries, Tests are still Australia’s most substantial earner and site of interest. Yet in a world of sports trying to claim more of the calendar, Australian administrators are in voluntary retreat.

Even as recent decades have squeezed the format into shorter series, while tour matches are euthanised and preparation is eroded as an outdated luxury, there still has to be time within a series itself. Two matches could run back to back, maybe three, but any longer and there has to be space built into the tour, gaps of a week or 10 days to offset the physical demand. Those pauses also gave the audience time for breath; they let players rest and storylines compound. Much of the rhythm of cricket is in waiting.

@Chrissy

You remember that farcical 3 test WI tour few yrs back when commies were asking why big bashers Russel, Crampy et al weren't in the test team? Big Bash was in between tests, some games even simultaneously and WI "Stars" dominating. GREED!

It’s all greed now

And it only going get crazier.

There's a sweet melancholy in bawling for the good old days. For that girl you knew in primary school. For Test cricket. All the same feeling, all the same dotishn pointlessness.

But facts are a helluva drug. Yeah, the nostalgia bring up all them nice feelings, but lewwe deal with the facts of life, not the romantic nonsense.

Test matches outside the marquee series play in empty grounds and lose money. Cricket Australia has been operating at a loss for years, and that includes years they hosted a full India series.

Who in their right mind paying to watch West Indies, Bangladesh or Zimbabwe play Tests? Not even their own citizens turning out. Not even the "purists" who does be online crying about it. But the T20s in those same territories? Rammed out.

The Big Bash, the IPL, T20 leagues across the board, that is what generates the revenue, keeps cricket alive and subsidises the very format allyuh bawling it killing.

T20 aint killing Test cricket. It feeding it. Without T20, cricket dead. All cricket.

So for all you circle-jerking purists who bawling and wining for Tests, go attend one anywhere in teh Caribbean. See how exciting that is in an empty ground.

Instead of burying T20, bow down and praise it.

be thankful they even playing tests.

@VIX

My last time going to watch a test match was 2017 or 2018 in South Africa when they played OZ and I attended the last day of the match in Durban.

After that, the Sandpaper test happened I believe......

I have attended many a T20s since (& no ODIs)..... lol

@FunnyMan

may have been port elizabeth. ab scored a brilliant hundred in that gAME. Jeff crowe was itching to to play australia's 12th player by banning rabada for absolutely nothing

@VIX

You should see the amount of people they have at the ILT20 or Abu Dhabi T10 you couldn't fit water into the seats🙄

You do understand that World sports is now based on T.V. & streaming viewership right???

It doesn't matter who TF is at the stadium as long as man betting on games no one cares about the quality of any sport anymore I think that's the point the so called "purist" are getting at!!!

@WIfan26

Every single lickit league in the world (including the CPL) is nothing more than a conduit and a repository for sports betting, sports washing, and money laundering.

In addition of course for showcasing rank cowlashers and pelters and being the WWE version of the sport.

@WIfan26

If we’re being pedantic, betting proves nothing about a sport’s health. Bookmakers take bets on anything with a scoreline, not because it’s popular. That money never touches the sport (legally). It doesn’t build audiences or interest.

The format still has to attract enough viewers to be worth airing. If Test cricket can't draw audiences, then the problem remains. Broadcast value is built on atmosphere and engagement, empty Test grounds undermine both. Betting doesn’t fix that.

@VIXTHEVIRGIN

Listen stupid.

Ask your dotish virgin self why women's cricket is all of a sudden all over the world with their own lickit leagues, and some players getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, when no one attends the matches or watches any of it?

@FunnyMan

yeah, i can't remember last time i attended a test match. I quicker go see a club t20 😀

@VIX

I quicker go see a Catholic Priest.

And you're still a virgin.

@VIX

Yes that model works for the IPL where there's a billion cricket crazy idiots to drive up viewership but investors just spent over US$ 3 BILLION to buy a couple teams you really think it's viewership alone driving that???

What about every other league you really think Indians studying what every single IPL affiliated team doing???

I mean in all honesty if you've seen a couple T20's they all follow a basic script where you can always tell where the game is going I personally only watch if it's CPL or Hettie & Pooran batting everything else is just plain boring!!! Maybe I should start betting!!!

@VIX

I was at the famous Brisbane test that WI won. The grounds were packed each day. I was also at the Trent Bridge test a couple years ago. We had already been murdered at Lords but the grounds were packed. Test cricket is very much alive in England and Australia even when their teams are playing so called minnows like West Indies. It is only in the WI that people are no longer interested in coming out to support their own side