Australia to play more T20s with eye on 2020

Australia will play fewer Tests and ODIs but more Twenty20 matches under the International Cricket Council's radical overhaul of international cricket.

The ICC on Friday signed off on plans to give Test and one-day international matches greater context and relevance, with Australia's 2019 Ashes campaign in England to potentially be the first series played for points under a nine-team world Test championship.

A 13-team ODI league – with series capped at three matches – will be introduced from 2020 and determine which teams qualify for the World Cup in India three years later.

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland said the revamp would likely result in Australia playing slightly fewer Tests and open up the schedule for more international T20s to be played – particularly in the lead-up to World T20 events.

"There will definitely be more (international) T20 cricket," Sutherland said on Friday.

"But we'll also be quite strategic about it in terms of scheduling matches to create experiences for the development of our team.

"One of the things we'll be doing is thinking carefully about where we might put more emphasis on one-day cricket say leading into World Cups or the Champions Trophy.

"Then more emphasis on T20 cricket when we're leading into a WT20 event."

Since the end of the last World T20 in India last April, Australia have played just seven T20s compared to 36 ODIs.

Australia will host the next men's World T20 in late 2020. Given they have only made one final from the six WT20 tournaments to date – losing to England in the Caribbean in 2020 – and have failed to progress past the group stage of the past two events, Sutherland is particularly keen to see the team play more 20-over internationals in the lead-up to 2020.

"It's no secret that we think the Australian team underperformed in WT20 events," he said.

"We want to see better performances.

"We'd like to see a better showing from our team in that event (in 2020) and we'll be looking to prepare our team accordingly."

Sutherland said although Australia will play slightly fewer Tests under the new model – estimating 10 or 11 matches per year compared to the current average of 12 – he believes the Test championship will strengthen the oldest form of the game.

"I do believe that the prestige and the level of engagement with Test cricket will be higher if we make it more precious," he said.

"Making it more precious means we play it in certain windows, it has structure, there is context as part of the Test championship ... it's not meaningless and people are wondering why it's being played.

"All of those things I think come together to be something that's very, very exciting for international cricket."

The new ODI league, which will feature the 12 full (Test-playing) ICC members plus the winner of the current ICC World Cricket League Championship, will see each side play four home and four away series each comprising three ODIs.

Limiting each series to just three matches – and putting the carrot of direct qualification for the World Cup on the line – will raise the stakes and increase interest in the 50-over game, Sutherland believes.

"I've been on about this for a long time," he said. "If you want to take a harsh view on one-day cricket, as popular as it has been and continues to be, the real context around one-day cricket happens every four years when a World Cup is played.

"In the middle of that, there is a lot of one-day cricket that is played, between 20 to 30 matches every season for us, but it many ways, that is all a prelude in between World Cups and us preparing a team to hopefully win a World Cup.

"This structure is really good. There's a championship at stake but it is also about World Cup qualification.

"We will also see one-day series capped at three matches. When you explore that in your own mind, (imagine) a three-match one-day series between Australia and India … three matches that count towards the league championship.

"Gee there's a lot at stake there and they would be huge matches."