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In order to prepare for the Test series against India, Australia’s multi-format stars will enjoy the strongest red-ball preparation for a summer in five years, with players getting up to four Sheffield Shield matches.
On Thursday, Cricket Australia released the domestic summer schedule, which includes the new women’s T20 league prior to the WBBL. The Sheffield Shield and the men’s one-day cup have seven matches apiece, as they have in previous seasons.
However, multi-format players will have a lengthy stretch of Shield games to be ready for the Test team’s attempt to reclaim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a very long time.
This year, Australia’s final foreign white-ball match is scheduled for September 29 in England, providing players with a week’s notice prior to the start of the Shield season on October 8. Before players report for camp for the first Test against India on November 22, each state will play three more matches, even if the quicks are rested from the first round.
Pat Cummins will not play in the September limited-overs trip of the UK; Mitchell Starc will play in the limited-overs series against England exclusively. Josh Hazlewood is a part of both versions.
Although Cummins and Hazlewood did not play Shield prior to the first Test since November 2019, Starc represented NSW in matches during the 2020–21 bubble. In contrast, Mitchell Marsh has only participated in two Shield games since 2019.
The abundance of Shield matches will also give players like Cameron Bancroft, Marcus Harris, and Matt Renshaw a chance to advance their selection causes.
Although Australia’s Test team is currently pretty much fixed, they will want to enter the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a backup batter. Chief selector George Bailey stated in March that after Renshaw, Harris, and Bancroft were all denied national contracts, there was no longer a clear favourite to unseat Steven Smith or Usman Khawaja at the top of the order.
After Khawaja was promoted to the position to replace David Warner last summer, Bailey has hinted that a specialist opener will eventually take Smith’s place in the starting lineup.