Four Tests in 31 days: Australia’s brutal summer schedule revealed before India tour

Australia’s Test stars face a frenetic home summer after Cricket Australia unveiled a schedule in which they will play four Tests against New Zealand in 31 days – before departing almost immediately for a gruelling five-Test tour of India.

The condensed timeline, released on Sunday night, sets up a high-intensity Test block from December 9 to January 8 that will test the depth of Pat Cummins’ squad.

None of the Tests are day-night matches, with a pink ball game reserved for the 150th anniversary Test against England at the MCG in March next year.

The tough summer schedule comes amid a broader workload where Australia could play 21 Tests in a 12-month window, with two against Bangladesh at home in August and three in South Africa in October preceding the home summer.

Notably, Bangladesh and New Zealand won’t play warm-up matches before taking on an Australian side ranked No.1 in the world in Test cricket. New Zealand’s squad is due to land on December 2, only seven days before the opening Test in Perth.

After the two men’s Tests against Bangladesh in Darwin and Mackay, and three away against South Africa, Australia will host England for three one-day internationals and five T20s from November 13 to December 2.

Like last season, Perth will host the first Test of the summer, on December 9.

Brisbane, as expected, has missed out on a Test this season, with fixtures to follow in Adelaide (December 17-21), plus the traditional Boxing Day and new year Tests at the MCG (December 26-30) and SCG (January 4-8).

With four Tests crammed into just over four weeks, the longest break between matches will be four days between Adelaide and Melbourne. Tests No.2 to No.5 against England in the recent series were played over 33 days.

The scheduling squeeze leaves little room for recovery before the India tour, with Australia expected to depart within days of the end of the SCG Test. Dates have not been confirmed for the India tour, but the first Test is likely to be about January 21.

“There’s no date of when our team would depart [after the Sydney Test], but you’d imagine, if history is any guide, they’d like to have eight or nine days [preparation],” said CA’s head of scheduling, Peter Roach. “They’ve also gone to Dubai first before heading to India.”

After victory over England inside two days to begin last summer, Australia will return to the west against New Zealand, with Roach adamant the venue favours the home side.

It comes after Mitchell Starc said on the eve of the Perth Test: “[Cricket Australia] don’t listen to players, we would have liked to start in Brisbane.”

“It’s a great start to the summer, and it’s an uncomfortable ground for opposition teams to come,” Roach said. “We do like giving ourselves a good advantage in the series. When we go to other countries, it’s not made comfortable for us. When you hear players talk about wanting to play the first Test at the Gabba or Perth, there’s a reason for that. They know it’s advantage Australia.”

Cricket Australia will also be hoping for longer contests this summer after last year’s Ashes went for 18 of a possible 25 days, including two Tests that finished inside two days.

Roach said that while CA doesn’t control the state of pitches, it has a vested interest in making sure they produce good battles between bat and ball.

“We don’t want to see boring draws and clearly we don’t want matches to finish too early,” Roach said.

“It does mean that occasionally we get it wrong because we’re putting a lot of faith in our curators. They are the best in the world. Do we have control? No. Will we ever have control? It’s inconceivable that we could ever control much more than we do now.

“We would expect the MCG to respond really strongly next year.”

Meanwhile, Australia’s women will play three ODIs and three T20s against Bangladesh in October, before hosting New Zealand for the same format split across February and March.