New Delhi: Indian women's cricket team will play a T20 tri-series in Australia against the host and England in January, Cricket Australia (CA) announced on Tuesday.
The series is scheduled prior to the start of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup to be played on Australian soil for the first time, which is slated to begin from February 21, 2020.
According to cricket.com.au, a division of Cricket Australia, CA would honour its commitment to tour India for three-match men's One Day Internationals (ODIs) in mid-January, which had caused a reshuffle of the home international schedule and pushed back the Chappell-Hadlee series.
CA failed to cut a deal with BCCI to move the three-match ODI series. As a result of this schedule, it will be the first time in 41 years that Australia's international schedule will stretch into late-March as Australia will host New Zealand for Chappell-Hadlee series in March.
The Black Caps who wrap up their Test series in Sydney with the New Year's Test between January 3 and 7 will return to play three ODIs on March 13, 15, and 20. As per the schedule, during the period, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka's men's teams will tour Australia.
"Scheduling international cricket is challenging in that nine of the ten major cricketing countries have seasons similar to ours, so working with them to find space in the calendar to fulfil our obligations to the ICC Future Tours Program (FTP) is a juggling act, the website quoted CA's Head of Cricket Operations Peter Roach as saying.
"The long-range FTP had three separate limited-overs series scheduled between India, New Zealand and Australia. When the countries started working through the detail, it was clear that there was not enough space for each series at the proposed times," he added.
During the period, Australia will play 28 international matches across 10 venues that will also include the women's T20 World Cup.
Brisbane Gabba will host of the opening Test of the summer when Pakistan visit from November 21 for a two-Test series, with points in the forthcoming ICC Test Championship up for grabs for the first time on Australian soil.(UNI)
