Cricket Australia Announces Summer Schedule for 2019-20 Season, New Zealand, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka to Tour Down Under

Australia has announced their packed home summer which will see teams like New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, England and India will tour Down Under. They will tour Australia for a season that will run from September 2019 to late March 2020. It includes 20 international matches across 10 venues across Australia. It also includes all the matches slated to be played in the Women’s T20 World Cup.

It was on Monday (7^th May) Cricket Australia announced the fixtures of the 2019-20 home season. For the first time in 41 years, the home season for Australia will run until March when New Zealand is slated to lock horns against their arch-rivals in 3 ODI’s for the Chappell Hadlee Trophy.

The home season for Australia will begin in late October with Sri Lanka playing 3 T20I’s which is slated to be played in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne. It will be a followed by three matches T20I series against Pakistan which is slated to be played in Sydney, Canberra and Perth. They will also contest in a two-match Test series slated to be played in Brisbane and Adelaide. The 2^nd Test in Adelaide is expected to be a day nigh encounter.

It will be followed by a three-match Test series against New Zealand between 12^th December to 7^th January. The matches will be played in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. The first match of the series will be a Boxing day clash which has been the case between Australia and New Zealand since 1987. New Zealand will then again return for the ODI’s which is slated to be played on 13^th, 15^th and 20^th March respectively.

“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 fulfil our obligations to the ICC Future Tours Program (FTP) is a juggling act,” said CA’s Head of Cricket Operations, Peter Roach.

“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. 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.

“We evaluated different options for an alternative and saw the most value in the March opportunity to extend our window in the traditional cricket season.”