Australia to play fewer Tests, focus more on T20s

The International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday announced the plans for Test and One-Day International leagues that involves the top nine Test playing nations and 13 ODI teams. The objective of the leagues is to make bilateral cricket interesting as it has been observed to be losing context of late. As a result of the same, Australia will shift focus from Test and ODI and appear more frequently in the shortest format of the game.

Both the leagues are scheduled to get underway from 2019 and 2020 respectively. In the Test league the teams will play six series’ in the course of two years – three at home and three away. The series will constitute a minimum of two matches and can be stretched to five at max. The points accumulated in the due course will lead the teams to the finale of the World Test League Championship.

According to Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland, the newly introduced plan means the baggy greens will make fewer appearances while the focus will shift towards the T20I format considering that the World T20 is to be played in 2020.

More T20Is

“There will definitely be more (international) T20 cricket,” Sutherland was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au on Friday. “But we’ll also be quite strategic about it in terms of scheduling matches to create experiences for the development of our team,” he added.

They will get back the impetus onto ODIs after deliberation when a World Cup or a Champions Trophy approaches. “One of the things we’ll be doing is thinking carefully about where we might put more emphasis on one-day cricket say leading into World Cups or the Champions Trophy,” Sutherland mentioned.

Better performance in WT20

T20s will be in the centre when they are preparing for the world event in the shortest format. The next edition of the World T20 that has been pushed to 2020 will be hosted by Australia. “Then more emphasis on T20 cricket when we’re leading into a WT20 event,” the CA chief further added.

A team that dominated Test as well as ODI cricket for a long time Australia has never won a World T20 title and more so qualified for the final just once. The board recognizes that and wants the team to do well in the upcoming event.

“It’s no secret that we think the Australian team underperformed in WT20 events,” he said. “We want to see better performances. We’d like to see a better showing from our team in that event (in 2020) and we’ll be looking to prepare our team accordingly,” Sutherland concluded.