GIVE US A TEST

Premier sets sights on Tasmanian Ashes

THE Covid chaos could open the door to a Tasmanian Ashes Test, according to Premier Peter Gutwein.

WA Premier Mark McGowan has the state’s borders slammed shut to most of the eastern seaboard, meaning it would be impossible for players to travel from Sydney to Perth. Mr Gutwein and Cricket Tasmania have already started conversations with Cricket Australia about Blundstone Arena hosting the state’s first Ashes match.

THE process that allowed Tasmania to host two AFL finals could be used for an audacious bid to pinch an Ashes Test.

While Covid has crippled much of the country, it opened the door for Tasmania to host a record 12 AFL roster games this year, capped off with the state’s first AFL finals.

Now Tasmania is aiming for Sydney’s New Year’s Ashes Test, given the NSW predicament and with the next scheduled Test in Perth.

WA Premier Mark McGowan has the state’s borders slammed shut to most of the eastern seaboard, meaning it would be impossible for players to travel from Sydney to Perth without undertaking two weeks’ quarantine.

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein and Cricket Tasmania have already started conversations with Cricket Australia about Blundstone Arena hosting the state’s first Ashes match, especially with the almost certain cancellation of Hobart’s Australia-Afghanistan Test originally scheduled for November.

“I would hope consideration would be given to Tasmania receiving another Test match,” Mr Gutwein said.

“Now noting Mr McGowan has some very strong views about people arriving into that state from the eastern seaboard, I think a good option might be for Tasmania to be considered for that.”

His views are backed by CT chief executive Dominic Baker.

“Irrespective of the status of the Afghanistan Test match, Cricket Tasmania is absolutely willing, able and eager to host an Ashes Test in Hobart, and we’ve made that known to Cricket Australia,” Mr Baker said.

Australian Test captain Tim Paine has also jumped onboard.

“The Sydney Test is the fourth Test of the Ashes, the fifth Test is in Perth, I find it very hard to believe the WA government are going to let us travel from Sydney to Perth for that fifth Test,” Paine said on SEN’s Jack & Painey show in an interview with Mr Gutwein.

“I’m proposing we get that New Year’s Test from Sydney, then we all fly straight to Perth.”

Meanwhile, Mr Gutwein has also fired a broadside at West Australian Premier Mark McGowan, cursing the unfair distribution of GST revenues as undermining the federation.

The WA premier handed down a budget with a surplus of $5.6bn on Thursday – the largest in the state’s history and the only state surplus in the nation.

At the same time, Tasmania’s deficit budget will see the state slide further into debt.

New South Wales Treasurer Dominic Perrottet called Premier McGowan the “Gollum of Australian politics”, sitting in a cave with a GST cash hoard.

Mr Gutwein said a state that received $11.3bn in mining royalties – nearly twice Tasmania’s total annual government spending – didn’t need more GST.