The impression is not borne out by fact, but it feels like a long time since Australia last played in England. So intense was the 2023 Ashes period, with both men’s and women’s series condensed into June and July, that the 13 months since have sensorily expanded in the mind. An unusual feeling given that international cricket now revolves around Australia, England and India playing one another on an endless carousel, though granted, those teams managed to meet in two different flavours of men’s World Cup in the interim.
Still, those Australia-England encounters both came in the pool stage and ended up suitably damp. A full series of three T20s and five one-day matches has more heft. Bilateral contests these days get criticised as pointless money-makers, meaningless without context. The World Cup Super League qualifiers created context for one-day cricket but was abandoned after a few short years. T20s have only ever been for exhibition.
So it’s true these games are there to sell tickets and drinks and train fares in England, but it’s also true that something can only be a money-maker if people care enough about it to pay up. For now, at least, any game against Australia can still wedge English posteriors into moulded plastic seats. This series will struggle for visibility on the far side of the planet, screened overnight in September when the country’s sporting attention is consumed by various codes of football finals.
But that’s not an issue of over-supply. These sides have each hosted the other for three one-dayers and three T20s since 2018. Six games each in six years. The most recent five-match series goes back to Tim Paine and Justin Langer’s first post-sandpaper assignment, when their new team channelled the deer while England played the headlights.
More resistant to scepticism in the current series might be the presence of upcoming players on both sides. Two quite aged teams are becoming two sides in transition. Whatever the context, it will be useful and productive to see what happens with players given the bigger canvas of a tour spanning a month, testing how they cope with high-profile contests and extended time on the road.
With David Warner retired, Matthew Wade dispensed with, and rest ordered for Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Glenn Maxwell, there are spots aplenty across 20 overs. Cooper Connolly, the lefty with the blond mane, won a Sheffield Shield final in his first game for Western Australia and a Big Bash final in his fourth game for Perth. He bowls left-arm spin, has just turned 21, and debuted last week against Scotland but didn’t get a hit.
Xavier Bartlett can open the bowling with height and swing, while the rapid Riley Meredith is floating around as injury cover. Either could be added to the one-day squad, with Spencer Johnson and Nathan Ellis both injured playing English domestic cricket. Aaron Hardie is in both squads, the seaming all-rounder a chance to ignite his handful of matches. The same even goes for Cameron Green: anointed in the Test side, but fringe in one-dayers, and whose games against Scotland were his first T20s for Australia since 2022.
There is less space in the one-day team for players to stake their claim: Marcus Stoinis and Tim David will be cut after the T20s, but Maxwell and Starc return along with the middle-order craft adhesive of Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne. Even older players like Alex Carey and Matthew Short may be stuck on the sidelines hoping for a hit, Carey given the blazing batting of his keeping rival Josh Inglis, Short never having been given a proper tilt.
Most of the attention will be on Jake Fraser-McGurk, a batting destruction derby at 22 years old. After tearing up the IPL earlier this year and touring as a T20 World Cup reserve, he went nowhere against Scotland with scores of 0, 16, 0, while his teammates pillaged. Australia might as well give him all eight games at the top against England. If he clicks in one, anything might happen.
Lastly for Australia, it’s a formal change in leadership, with Mitchell Marsh in charge for the whole tour. As of right now he only has the T20 job permanently, with Cummins still notionally the one-day captain, but surely that will come before long with the next World Cup so far away.
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England also have new leadership for at least part of the span, with Phil Salt deputising while Jos Buttler tries to beat injury. Of recent white-ball players, Dawid Malan and Moeen Ali have formally retired, while Johnny Bairstow has been pensioned off despite getting a two-year contract less than a year ago. Former coach Matthew Mott was sacked, with Test coach Brendon McCullum to take over next year and Marcus Trescothick to handle the interim.
Jofra Archer will continue his comeback across both formats, the giant Josh Hull will follow up his Test debut last week, young quick John Turner is in both squads, the oft-injured Saqib Mahmood will play the T20s, and Olly Stone the ODIs. This slate shows an England side looking firmly to pace, even with Mark Wood injured and Gus Atkinson rested.
Up in the all-rounder bracket, there are likely debuts for the young and highly rated spin options Jacob Bethell and Dan Mousley, while the seaming variants could see an England limited-overs cap for the tenacious Jamie Overton, or Brydon Carse add to his few internationals. Dynamic keeper-bats in Jordan Cox and Jamie Smith will join Salt at different times. In short, once the first ball is bowled, there will be plenty to play for, and plenty to watch for as well.
