I thought of many ways to start this article, but eventually decided to start it off with a joke. The Australian cricket calendar.
Did that make you laugh? It sort of made me want to take the piece of paper the calendar is printed on and burn it.
The problem that clearly no one has taken into account is the fact that a World Cup is just over a month away – one month for goodness sake! Whether you like the Twenty20 format or not, it must be taken seriously, because it is here to stay.
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» Slow and spinning will win the race at World T20
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» Shane Watson knocks himself into Twenty20 World Cup contention
» Is Shane Watson Australia’s greatest ever captain?
» Australia’s Tour of New Zealand 2016: The battle of the Tasman preview
» Faulkner’s flagging, Watson’s flying
Yet if you were to look at the Australian national team’s fixtures throughout the summer, you would see three Twenty20 games on home soil, before a few in South Africa during the final build up. In fact, that’s all Australia will go to South Africa for – just a few Twenty20 games.
If you look through February, there is a tour of New Zealand. Before we go on, it has to be mentioned that Australia haven’t had a proper series of any sort against our closest rivals.
Despite the fact that there is a World Cup just around the corner, one that Australia have struggled at over the years, the upcoming tour of New Zealand is going to involve zero Twenty20 matches.
I suggest you now pause, read that again, go for a run round the block, punch the wall in frustration, maybe throw the TV remote out the window, and then come back to your computer or phone to check this isn’t a dream.
Why on earth is it, that while India will play a further seven Twenty20 matches before the World Cup, Australia are playing three – all on a separate tour.
How is sending players halfway across the world for roughly nine hours of cricket across three matches, before bringing them back to India for the World Cup, good for anyone?
It just seems that Australia aren’t taking the Twenty20 World Cup seriously. This becomes even more apparent when you look back over their schedule for last summer, before the epic Cricket World Cup, which Australia of course won.
There was more ODI cricket than you could poke a stick at last summer. It got to the point where you almost forgot there were other forms of cricket. In light of Australia’s double-figure amount of ODI games in the lead up to that World Cup, the six Twenty20s they’ll play this summer makes you cringe.
The games against India almost seemed like revenue raisers for Cricket Australia. Half the squad was on the plane to New Zealand by the time the third game was played, and Australia used a massive 18 players throughout the three games.
This showed the clearly unsettled nature of the squad, and the fact the games really did not mean that much.
One would hope the South African series will be made to mean something, but it still seems a pointless exercise, especially when your closest neighbours are hosting you for a tour in the other two forms of the game just a month prior.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde
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