Australia has selected a full strength squad of 13 for the two Test series against Bangladesh in Darwin and Mackay which kickstarts a year in which the Aussies could play 21 Tests if qualifying for the World Test Championship final in June.<\/p>\nThe series will see captain Pat Cummins, champion pace bowler Josh Hazlewood and record-breaking spinner Nathan Lyon return after serious injuries curtailed their presence in Australia\u2019s dominant Ashes win over England last summer.<\/p>\n
Cummins, who played only the Adelaide Test, and Hazlewood, who missed the entirety of the summer, were among those who featured in a match simulation session at Allan Border Oval in Brisbane on Monday ahead of the Bangladesh series.<\/p>\n
While the squad for the two Test series is small, head coach Andrew McDonald said last week there are 19 players preparing for the initial stanza of red ball cricket given the South Africa tour is only two months away.<\/p>\n
With a tour of South Africa, the reigning WTC champions, to follow in October followed by four Test summer against New Zealand, which precedes the five match Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in India, it shapes as a heavy summer load.<\/p>\n
Australia set to host Bangladesh | 07:34<\/p>\n
Australia will also host England in a one-off Test at the MCG in March to celebrate the 150th Anniversary Test before the WTC decider in June, should they qualify, and the Ashes abroad, but Border is pleased to see the front-liners playing Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a big fan of just playing our best side and if someone breaks, there\u2019ll be someone to replace them,\u201d Border told foxsports.com.au.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why you play Sheffield Shield. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve got hosts of young players just waiting for their opportunities. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think Mitchell Starc last year showed that, you know, these guys are at they\u2019re an age where the more they bowl, almost the better they become. So if you take Starc\u2019s example, Joshy Hazlewood, hopefully he\u2019s back to full fitness, and the skipper as well, I just think they\u2019ll all be better for bowling as much as they possibly can and resting when appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Border is not certain whether the upcoming series will provide a decent gauge as to where the Australian team is at ahead of the year above but is hopeful it will set the stage for the nation\u2019s top-order to find form.<\/p>\n
The Ashes series resulted in two day Test matches in Perth and at the MCG and Border believes the pitches were too advantageous for pace bowlers, which made batting harder and also reduced the time for spinners to have an impact.<\/p>\n
Australian captain Pat Cummins played only one Test last summer but former skipper Allan Border is pleased the Aussies will field a full squad against Bangladesh. (Photo by Chris Hyde\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Champion batter Steve Smith said there were moments in matches where it was better to be aggressive and make runs as quickly as possible rather than play conservatively because, invariably, it would not take too long to get out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe games I watched last year, we had a couple of debacles, didn\u2019t we?\u201d Border said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean we had green grassy tracks and games were finishing in two to two and a half days, so the bowlers had their way last year. This year I\u2019d like to see some good surfaces, good, flat and true surfaces that degenerate over a period of time, where on days three, four and five things start to happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first couple of days, it (should be) a good batting surface. That\u2019s what I\u2019d like to see and I think you\u2019ll see our batsman come through, because it is difficult to go out there against a good hard red ball with the ball moving off the seam. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you do? If you if you play it properly, you just nick one and get out. And then if you try and slog and get out, I mean, you\u2019re between a rock and a hard place. So it\u2019s very difficult for the batting side of the equation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not about the quality of cricketer. That is about the surface you play on, so I want good surfaces that give everyone an opportunity, but particularly the batting early on in the game, and then the spinners and the fast bowlers come into it as the game wears on from there, and if we get that, then we will have some idea as to how our batting is going.\u201d<\/p>\n
2027 Ashes schedules released | 00:58<\/p>\n
Cricket Australia conceded it was \u201cbad for business\u201d to have pitches that were too seam-friendly but while the message to curators around the country is that games lasting at least four days are preferable, there will be no central edict.<\/p>\n
Instead curators will be trusted to judge the conditions, with CA head of operations Peter Roach saying in March those based in states were best-placed to monitor conditions and deliver a decent pitch. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s inconceivable that we could ever control much more than we do now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn England, you could put in a central curator to go around or New Zealand, or South Africa, because the wickets and the clays and the climates are so similar.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Australia, because they\u2019re so different, you could put the best curator in Australia to a different venue and all of a sudden they\u2019re an also-ran for a while. Because they wouldn\u2019t know the characteristics and the climate and how those pitches respond to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins during the Australian Test Squad Match Simulation at Allan Border Field on August 03, 2026 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
AUSTRALIA 2026-27 TEST SCHEDULE<\/p>\n
Two Tests vs Bangladesh: August 13-17 Darwin, August 22-26 Mackay<\/p>\n
Three Tests vs South Africa: October 9-13 Durban, October 18-22 Gqberha, October 27-31 Cape Town<\/p>\n
Four Tests vs New Zealand: December 9-13 Perth, December 17-21 Adelaide, December 26-30 Melbourne, January 4-8 Sydney<\/p>\n
Five Tests vs India: January 21-25 Nagpur, January 29-February 2 Chennai, February 11-15 Guwahati, February 19-23 Ranchi, February 27-March 3 Ahmedabad<\/p>\n
150th Anniversary Test vs England: March 11-15 MCG<\/p>\n
Possible World Test Championship final: June 9-13 The Oval<\/p>\n
The Ashes, five Tests vs England: June 18-22 Trent Bridge, June 30-July 4 Lord\u2019s, July 8-12 Edgbaston, July 21-25 Rose Bowl, July 29-August 2 The Oval<\/p>\n
Allan Border will feature as a Fox Cricket expert analyst during the series against Bangladesh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian great Allan Border is hoping for a more even test between bat and ball as the nation\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":841496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-841495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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