The Australian summer of cricket needs a major overhaul. It is simply not in tune with modern day needs of fan both attending the games and watching at home on TV.

It certainly isn’t conducive to producing the strongest Australian teams and best cricket over the summer.

I’ve proposed here an overall of the schedule that provides more opportunity for fans to attend games and also ensures the domestic competition more closely mirrors that national team.

Below are the changes I would bring to the schedule and I’ve used this summer as an example of what the cricketing schedule could look like.

Test Cricket
Let’s start with Test cricket. This is our most traditional form of the game and with the exception of Ashes series it’s struggling for traction.

Crowds are dwindling. This week we have a cracking Test match between Australia and South Africa and there were only 10,000 in attendance on Day 1.

The Gabba Test has been struggling for years because it’s in early to mid-November. The bulk of Test matches should be played in the school holiday window of mid-December to late January.

Cricket Australia can bemoan Gabba and WACA crowds all they like but how many people do they expect to turn up on a Thursday in early November when everyone is still at work and the kids are at school? It’s just not going to happen.

Saturdays in November are when the majority of the 1.2 million Australians who now play cricket are playing for their local clubs – children in the morning and adults in the afternoon.

Depending on the opposition by the time you get to Day 4 (usually Sundays in early season Tests), the game may be all but over. Move these early season Tests into the school holiday period and crowds will be bumper like we generally get for the MCG and SCG Tests.

I would also take on Mark Taylor’s suggestion of making Test matches four days in length.

Extend play by an hour each day and make each day 100 overs minimum. That would result in 400 overs for a Test match as opposed to the current 450 overs – and enforce run penalties for teams who don’t bowl their allotted overs.

Test matches that run the full five days now rarely reach 450 overs anyway with teams rarely bowling 90 overs in a day. Bring in run penalties and make teams keep the cricket moving.

Four Day Tests mean you can fit more games in the school holiday period which is going to result in more people attending the cricket.

The bonus of not starting the Test series until mid-December is that it gives the opportunity for fringe players to really push for Test selection over five full rounds of Sheffield Shield rather than the three days of Shield cricket that took place this summer before the first Test team was announced.

This year, for example, we would have had Joe Burns, Shaun Marsh and Usman Khawaja have a genuine battle over ten innings to push their claims for a Test spot.

Or maybe a youngster who had a decent 2015-16 Shield season (read Travis Dean, Kurtis Patterson, Matt Renshaw etc) could have pushed their claims had the more recognized batsmen failed.

We could have had Peter Siddle, Joe Mennie, Jackson Bird and others fighting it over five matches rather than one or two innings of bowling.

Perhaps we could have seen the likes of Patrick Cummins and James Pattinson finding fitness and perhaps pushing for selection on the back of playing some actual first class cricket.

Here’s how I would schedule both the Sheffield Shield and Test fixtures if we were to re-jig this current summer of cricket.

Sheffield Shield and Test schedule
Schedule the first five rounds between 13th October and 25th November. During Round 5 of the Shield completion I would have a Cricket Australia XI comprised of the best first class players not selected for their states in Round 5 playing a 3-day tour match against South Africa at Manuka Oval.

At the conclusion of the final round of Shield cricket the Australian Test team would be chosen for the first Test and a genuine Australia A team would be selected to play South Africa in a four-day tour match at Alan Border Oval.

These players would know that they are next in line to the Test team and would be rewarded with an opportunity to prove themselves against the South Africans knowing that with a dip in form or injury to a Test player and they may get their opportunity later in the summer.

This match would have been scheduled on 1-4 December this summer.

The first Test would be at the Gabba from Friday 9 to Sunday 12 December and be a Day-Night fixture. It’s the perfect way to start the school holidays with Friday being the last day of school for the year.

Being a Day-Night Test at the start of the school holidays it should be well attended and a bumper crowd.

During the first Test, Round 6 of the Sheffield Shield would be played before taking a break until mid-February.

The second Test would be held at the WACA from 16–19 December again in school holidays to give the maximum likelihood of high attendance.

It would be a day fixture that provides good TV coverage of the last session in the Eastern states.

The third Test against South Africa would be the Boxing Day Test at the MCG. I know traditionally South Africa have been reluctant to give up their own Boxing Day Test, but I’m sure if Cricket Australia dug deep enough into their very deep kitty the South Africans could be persuaded to give up one Boxing Day Test every four years when touring Australia.

Then onto the Test series against Pakistan. During the boxing Day Test, they would play a 3-day tour game against a Cricket Australia XI made up of the best Shield players either not playing BBL or not likely to be selected in their BBL team’s best XI.

The first Test against Pakistan would be the New Year’s Test in Sydney from 2-5 January.

This would be followed by the second Test from 12-15 January at Bellerive Oval, again a great school holiday slot.

The third Test against Pakistan and the final Test of the summer would be a Day-Night Test at the Adelaide Oval from 19-22 January.

This means all Test cricket is played when school kids are on school holidays, when most club cricketers are on their Christmas break and the time when most Aussies take a good chunk of annual leave.

It is geared to maximize crowds and give fans every opportunity to see high quality Test match cricket.

Sheffield Shield (Rounds 1-6) – 13 October – 12 December
CA XI vs South Africa – 22-24 November
Australia A vs South Africa – 1-4 December

Australia vs South Africa
First Test – 9–12 December, Gabba (D/N)
Second Test – 16–19 December, WACA
Third Test – 26–29 December, MCG

CA XI V Pakistan – 27–29 December, Manuka Oval

Australia vs Pakistan
First Test – 2-5 January, SCG
Second Test – 12-15 January, Bellerive Oval*
Third Test – 19-22 January, Adelaide Oval (D/N)

*I think it would be worthwhile considering Manuka Oval for a Test Match in place of Bellerive Oval once every three or four years.

T20 Cricket
The BBL is one thing Cricket Australia currently has right. I would essentially leave it as is. The preliminary games would be from 20th December to 18th January with the semi-finals and final to be played after the Day-Night Test in Adelaide – semi-finals on 24 and 25 January with the final on Saturday 28th January.

It’s immensely popular with bumper crowds and tv ratings of over 1 million most nights. It’s engaging young fans and lots of people new to cricket and is a runaway success.

As far as International T20 Cricket goes I would remove it from the summer and keep it as a domestic competition. The only time a national T20 should be picked is for a T20 world cup. Other than that, keep it to a domestic competition.

One Day Cricket
This is an area that needs a major overhaul. We currently have the Matador Cup being played in October starting on the footy codes’ grand final weekend while the majority of One Day Internationals are being played in late January and early February.

The domestic competition needs to have closer links to when the Australian team plays so that players are in form and playing the same form of cricket when they may be called on for the National team.

Then this summer we also have three ODIs stuck in between our Test Series against South Africa and Pakistan and in the middle of Sheffield Shield fixtures. It’s a mess.

With the exception of Ashes summers I think we should revisit a shorter version of the tri-series concept over a 3-week period. This summer the teams would remain as Australia, Pakistan and New Zealand.

Now before you shoot me down hear out my proposal. An Australia Day fixture between Australia and New Zealand at the SCG would kick off the tournament and each team would play each other three times.

Australia’s other matches against New Zealand and Pakistan would be played as D/N fixtures on Friday and Sunday of each weekend, one game at each of our six main Test venues.

The three games between Pakistan and New Zealand would be played on the Tuesday of each week with one game at Manuka and the other two taken to regional centres like Geelong and Cairns.

This would give these venues the opportunity to host international cricket and local schools would be given free tickets to bring their students along for the day.

The final would be played on a Friday afternoon/evening and would be a one-off game rather than the former three-game final series.

If the World Cup final is a stand-alone game, there is no need for a best of three series to decide the final.

In the 31 seasons a One-Day tri-series has been played, Australia has only failed to make the final on three occasions, meaning the final is almost always relevant to Aussie fans.

The entire tri-series would involve ten games over 23 days with all Australian games and the final being Day-Night games played in spectator and TV-friendly slots of Fridays and Sundays.

Tour match
Australia A vs New Zealand – Manuka Oval 22 January (using players not in BBL finals).

Matador Cup – 4-20 February.
Six state teams playing each other once with second and third playing an elimination final to play first in the final.

Tri-series
Australia vs New Zealand – Thursday 26 January (SCG)
Australia vs Pakistan – Sunday 29 January (MCG)
New Zealand vs Pakistan – Tuesday 31 January (Manuka)
Australia vs Pakistan – Friday 3 February (Adelaide Oval)
Australia vs New Zealand – Sunday 5 February (WACA)
New Zealand vs Pakistan – Tuesday 7 February (Geelong)
Australia vs New Zealand – Friday 10 February (Bellerive)
Australia vs Pakistan – Sunday 12 February (Gabba)
New Zealand vs Pakistan – Tuesday 14 February (Cairns)
Final – Friday 17 February (Highest bidding venue)

Sheffield Shield
The shield competition would resume for the final four rounds from 23 February to 20 March with the final played in the last week of March.

I understand there may be holes in the schedule I’ve proposed but it is geared to see bigger crowds in particular for Test match cricket, and to have the domestic and international summers running as concurrently as possible giving players the chance to be in form in the right form of the game at the right time of the season.