AUSSIES ARE COMING BACK FOR MORE NEXT YEAR

ENGLISH cricket’s financial reliance on hosting Australia was confirmed with the news that their oldest enemy will return next summer for the ninth time in 12 seasons. With England’s first match of their home 2020 schedule not starting until June 4 at the Oval, with the first of three Tests against West Indies, there will also be an unprecedented opportunity for their most marketable cricketers to spend nearly a full season at the Indian Premier League. The ECB say the dates were decided by the ICC as part of their Future Tours Programme, with the major nations now keeping all of April and May free to allow an undisturbed window for the IPL. Only Bangladesh, Ireland and Zimbabwe are scheduled to play bilateral cricket in that period next year. In a fixture list that also includes three Tests and three Twenty20 internationals for England against Pakistan, as well as three one-day internationals against Ireland, Australia will play three T20s at Chester-le-Street, Old Trafford and Headingley, before heading south for three ODIs, at Lord’s, Southampton and Bristol. Amid claims of overkill, it will be the fourth season in a row they have visited England, following this summer’s Ashes, a one-day series in 2018 and the Champions Trophy in 2017. The Australians also contested the Ashes here in 2015, 2013 and 2009 and one-day series in 2012 and 2010. The ECB’s cash reserves have shrunk in recent years, with some of the £1.1billion TV deal struck by chief executive Tom Harrison in 2017 being used to prop up next season’s new Hundred competition. There must be a danger, though, that the arrival of Australia in this country will, at some point, lose its lustre.