Australia Will Take On Their First Series Against England:
Ben Oliver, head of national teams for Cricket Australia, believes the summer schedule will go as planned despite the Covid-19 outbreak in Australia, resulting in uncertainty about some venues being able to host matches.
But Oliver admitted there would be challenges on the way, as the board looks to kick-start the home summer in the constantly evolving situation of Covid-19. “We are doing our best to get those matches played,” he said. “To be frank it’s not without its obstacles, the schedule and our ability to travel around the world are very challenging, but we have great support and dedication from our various partners including Afghanistan and India. We are now working through that and everyone is committed to getting as much cricket played as possible, “he added.
The coming England tour will be Australia’s first taste of international cricket since the long imposed Covid-19 break. Aaron Finch ‘s men will feature three T20Is in a short series, followed by three 50-over games-both matches are scheduled to be played in the Southampton and Manchester bio-secure bubbles.
“Our biosecurity team, led by our Chief Medical Officer and Head of Sports Science, has done a fantastic job in ensuring that we build our protocols, first and foremost keep our players and personnel safe. Then on the ground in England, the ECB set up a fantastic biosecurity environment,” he said.
Andrew McDonald, the assistant coach, does not fly with the side as a full-strength team has been named for the tour. Instead, he will fly to the UAE where he will interact with the Rajasthan Royals-with whom he has a pre-existing contract as the head coach. Oliver was pleased with the arrangement, and speculated that the experience of McDonald as Royals’ head coach could be useful in the future.
“When Andrew came on board that was part of our agreement with him. That he will continue as the Rajasthan Royals’ head coach – and we’re very happy with that. We believe this is a beneficial outcome for the growth of Andrew as a coach, but also for our players getting someone who has had that experience and bringing it back into our community , particularly with 3 World Cups of Whiteball coming up in the next 3 years. Two of them are from India. For Andrew and our team this is really a valuable experience.
Australia, for their part, has announced a 21-man squad for the England matches, and Pat Cummins has been named Finch ‘s sole vice-captain. This marks a paradigm change from the previous method, where two Deputies were called.
“The dual vice-captains have served extremely well over the past 2 years and were just about making sure that there was good support in this case for Aaron in the white-ball format and we were able to build wider leadership within the community. We definitely now feel that there is strong leadership around the community, a range of senior players. And we thought this was an appropriate time to return to a single vice-captain, particularly the selection panel in conjunction with Aaron, “he said.
With as many as twelve players having lucrative IPL contracts, the players are expected to head to the UAE after the white-ball series is concluded. Oliver said Cricket Australia (CA) would be in constant contact with the contingent and work out a program in November upon their return. “The players usually love to play in the game, we know it’s a very important world cricket tournament and we support our players taking part in the IPL.
“We are working with BCCI and our other international partners and our local partners, our broadcasters, government etc. to understand the flow-on impact of the postponement of the T20 World Cup and the IPL rescheduling and how we are doing this work as best we can this summer throughout our cricket. This will result in discussions with individual players on their schedule in the IPL and on Australia ‘s return.
