Australia's multi-format stars have been handed their best red-ball preparation for a summer in five years, with players to have up to four Sheffield Shield matches to fine tune for the Test series against India.
Cricket Australia announced the schedule for the domestic summer on Thursday, which includes the new women's T20 competition before the WBBL. As has been the case in recent seasons, the Sheffield Shield while the men's one-day cup sits at seven matches each.
But for the first time in a long time, multi-format players will have a long stretch of Shield games to prepare for the Test team's bid to win back the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
Australia's last overseas white-ball commitment this year is on September 29 in England, giving players a week before the beginning of the Shield season on October 8. Even if the quicks are rested from the first round, each state will play another three fixtures before players enter camp for the first Test against India starting November 22.
Pat Cummins is missing the entire limited-overs tour of the UK in September while Mitchell Starc will only feature in the ODI series against England. Josh Hazlewood has been included for both formats.
While Starc played matches for NSW during the 2020-21 bubble, Cummins and Hazlewood have not played Shield before the first Test since November 2019. Mitchell Marsh, meanwhile, has only played two Shield matches since 2019.
Availability of multi-format players for the Shield will likely be impacted by the limited-overs visit of Pakistan with the ODI series starting on November 4. The proximity of the T20Is (November 14-18) to the start of the India series means only players not featuring in the Test will likely be selected. There are also two Australia A-India A matches from late October which will pull players out of domestic cricket.
The glut of Shield matches will also provide an opportunity for the likes of Matt Renshaw, Marcus Harris and Cameron Bancroft a chance to push their selection causes.
While Australia's Test team is largely set for now, they will want to take a reserve batsman into the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Chief selector George Bailey said in March there was no longer a front-runner to one day replace Steven Smith or Usman Khawaja at the top of the order, after each of Renshaw, Harris and Bancroft missed out on national contracts.
Bailey has indicated that a specialist opener will be the one to eventually replace Smith or Khawaja in the long-term future, after the former was moved into the role to replace David Warner last summer.
In total six Shield rounds will be played before the BBL break, before each state plays four more matches in February and March. Shield fixtures will again be interwoven with the one-day cup, which starts on September 22, with Western Australia aiming for a fourth consecutive title in both competitions.
The Shield final will take place between March 26-30 while the 50-over finals will take place on consecutive days - the Marsh Cup on March 1 and WNCL on March 2.
The 50-over WNCL tournament, where Tasmania are bidding for a hat-trick of titles, again has 12 matches per team, while the newly introduced T20 series for women includes four games each as a result of the shortened WBBL.
Each of the eight WBBL teams will feature as well as the ACT Meteors, with the tournament to run while Australia's big-name players and overseas stars are in Bangladesh for the T20 World Cup.
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