After the re-scheduling of the multi-format India-Australia series due to the still-rampaging pandemic and the ongoing lockdown and border closures, the tour will be entirely played in Queensland. The Commonwealth Bank series will feature three ODIs, one-off Pink-Ball and three T20Is. Mackay and Gold Coast will be the venues for all the fixtures, as decided by Cricket Australia.
India with their 22-player side flew to Australia on Sunday evening and will now have to go under for a 14-days quarantine. Australia on the other hand, the 18-player squad, its two-third will also be mobbing into an isolation period of two weeks in Queensland as the proposed 12 players are based in either Sydney or Melbourne. Both the teams will be able to start their training sessions on September 13.
The twelve Australian players who are supposed to be in quarantine for 14 days are Meg Lanning, Rachael Haynes, Maitlan Brown, Stella Campbell, Hannah Darlington, Ashleigh Gardner, Alyssa Healy, Sophie Molineux, Ellyse Perry, Annabel Sutherland, TaylaVlaeminck and Georgia Wareham.
The Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay, formerly known as Harrup Park will be hosting the ODIs from September 21 followed by the one-off Pink-Ball test match and the three T20Is to be played at Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast between September 30 and October 10.
No warm-up match is likely to be conducted as per the latest confirmations. Previously, India was scheduled to play a warm-up game against the hosts’ Australia XI at Sydney’s Hurstville Oval on September 17. “We’ve been monitoring the situation across the country and it is clear that the current COVID challenges prevent the original schedule from proceeding as initially planned,” Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley said.
“We are incredibly grateful to the Queensland Government for agreeing to quarantine the Australian and Indian players and enabling this important series to be played in Queensland. We are also delighted to be bringing our World Champion women’s team to Mackay and regional Queensland,” he noted and further added, “Having had to postpone the series last summer due to the pandemic, we are looking forward to hosting an Indian team which boasts some of the best players in the world in this historic series featuring the first ever day-night Test match between the two sides.”
Beth Mooney (Queensland), Darcie Brown and Tahlia McGrath (both South Australia) just as Nicola Carey and Molly Strano (Tasmania) will not be needed to isolate. Queensland-based Georgia Redmayne is as of now going through about fourteen days of isolation on the Gold Coast subsequent to getting back from the Hundred in the UK and is expected to be delivered around September 7.
“We’re incredibly grateful to the government up here in Queensland for allowing our players in. We’ve been really good at quarantining, we did it really well in New Zealand and got some great wraps for the way we embraced it.” Australia coach Matthew Mott said and further pointed, “It’s going to be tough for those players, and particularly leading into a Big Bash straight after. Looking after them mentally and physically is going to be really important, it’s a congested schedule. That player freshness, keeping them up and about will be really crucial.”
The series will be the first run through India and Australia have met since the T20 World Cup last on March 8 last year, and will fill in as an essential arrangement ahead of the following year’s ODI World Cup in New Zealand.
Passes to the refreshed timetable will go marked down to all the fans on Tuesday, September 14 at 3 pm through Ticketek. Fans with passes to recently booked matches at North Sydney Oval, Junction Oval or the WACA will be communicated with straight by Ticketek, with passes to be refunded in full.
The continuous border closures likewise mean the beginning of the men’s homegrown season, which is right now all set to start in Melbourne on September 11, will be postponed.
The six-state groups had been scheduled to play six Marsh One-Day Cup games in six days between September 11 and 16 in one or the other Melbourne or Perth before the Marsh Sheffield Shield season starts on September 28.
Cricket Australia is relied upon to make a declaration in the coming days about changes to the men’s domestic timetable, which right now incorporates five full Shield rounds in two months before the odd-ball Test against Afghanistan in late November.
