A remarkably early start to the domestic cricket season should have Australia primed for a challenging Test series against South Africa, but a pair of Twenty20 tournaments loom large as major hurdles.
Australia captain Michael Clarke will skipper NSW for the first time in Sunday’s one-day match against Western Australia, with the Sheffield Shield season to start two days later in Perth.
Most of the nation’s sports fans will be fixated on AFL and NRL finals, while a fair chunk of the country’s best cricket talent will be in Sri Lanka for the World Twenty20 tournament.
There will then be almost two months before Australia host the Proteas in the Gabba Test starting on November 9.
But Clarke and his NSW teammates will only be able to play two more first-class fixtures in that time, with most of them jetting off to South Africa to represent the Sydney Sixers at the T20 Champions League.
They aren’t alone – the Perth Scorchers will also take part in the event, while tearaway quick James Pattinson could be amongst the Australians to be summoned by their Indian Premier League franchises.
The fact it’s a less than ideal situation is best reflected by the fact Australia’s bowling coach Ali de Winter will travel to the Champions League to do some red-ball work with his charges and monitor their workload.
But Clarke is confident the bash-and-crash format won’t curtail his side’s Test preparations.
“Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do. The Champions League has been on for a couple of years now, it was put in this place a long time ago,” Clarke said at NSW’s season launch on Thursday.
“I guess the advantage is that all countries are affected the same way, it’s not just the Australian players.
“There’s a lot of South Africans involved as well … it’s fair for everybody.
“It’s important the guys over in the Champions League play well there and hopefully have some success.
“But in the back of their mind they’re thinking about the start of the Test series.”
Clarke noted both Shield and T20 form would count in the national selectors’ minds ahead of the three-Test series against South Africa.
The 31-year-old said he knew how exacting the Proteas will be.
“They’re a very good team, it’s no coincidence they’re the No.1 Test team.
“We’re going to have to be at our best.
“We saw them not long ago in South African conditions, we know how good they are.”
Clarke will take the field on Sunday alongside Test aspirants Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Johnson, Doug Bollinger and wicketkeeper Brad Haddin.
