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Australia is set to play two men’s Tests at the MCG in the same season, including a 150th anniversary match against England in March, for the first time in more than 40 years after New Zealand agreed to extend its 2026-27 tour to four Tests.
Four sources with knowledge of plans, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations are ongoing, confirmed that Cricket Australia has reached terms for New Zealand to play four Tests rather than the three set out in the Future Tours Program.
More than 80,000 spectators saw Australia play New Zealand at the MCG on Boxing Day in 2019.Credit: AAP
This all but guarantees that the MCG will host both Boxing Day and a planned one-off Test in March between Australia and England to mark 150 years of Test cricket. That one-off event will force a host of reshuffles, involving three other countries, to make room.
It will also interrupt the AFL’s push to start the season earlier each year, having crept opening round from the last week of March to the first in recent seasons – the MCG typically hosts its first league fixture about the middle of March.
Under the terms of the current agreement between the AFL and cricket, struck in 2016, football gets access to the MCG no later than the Thursday before the second last Saturday of the month. In 2027, that date will be March 18. The 1977 Centenary Test at the MCG was held from March 12 to 17.
“Discussions with Cricket Australia continue but nothing has been determined yet for 2027,” a Melbourne Cricket Club spokesperson said.
CA declined to comment as did the AFL.
As previously reported by this masthead, CA’s chair Mike Baird and chief executive Nick Hockley were involved in talks this year about staging the anniversary match, with the ECB chair Richard Thompson and chief executive Richard Gould eager to take up the offer. A memorable 2023 Ashes series did not hurt.
But matches involving Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Ireland will all need to be adjusted for the “Sesquicentenary Test” to go ahead, 50 years after a similar occasion was staged at the MCG.
Two matches due to be played against Bangladesh in March may – pending the assent of that nation’s cricket board – be moved to August and September 2026. In order for that to take place, dates for a planned Bangladesh tour of Ireland would also need to be tweaked, and CA would have to move a scheduled visit by the Afghanistan men’s team.
The Queen visited the MCG and met with the players on the final day of the Centenary Test.Credit: The Age Archives
As it stands, Australia do not play bilateral cricket against Afghanistan in protest at the treatment of women by the Taliban regime, although games at World Cups are still played, as was the case earlier this month when Glenn Maxwell produced his Mumbai miracle.
The Tests against Bangladesh, originally due to be played immediately after an Australian Test tour of India in January and February, will likely be awarded to venues in north Queensland, such as Cairns or Mackay.
As World Test Championship fixtures, they must be played during the two-year qualification period that concludes in May 2027.
Inclusion of a fourth Test against New Zealand, meanwhile, would allow the MCG to again host the Black Caps on Boxing Day, after more than 80,000 attended their last visit on December 26 in 2019 – the biggest of all non-Ashes Boxing Day crowds.
Previous plans left uncertainty over which of Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney would miss out on one of three Tests in peak summer, with the Gabba set to be out of action due to 2032 Olympics renovations. Australia travels to India for a five-Test series in January and February 2027.
For each of the next two summers, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney are locked in as the hosts of one Test each, for five-match tours by India (2024-25) and England (2025-26).
Melbourne often hosted two Tests in the same season in the years before Perth and later Hobart became regular Test venues, but the most recent occurrence was as far back as 1981-82, the third season after the end of the World Series Cricket split.
That summer, both Pakistan and West Indies were hosted for Tests in December – the latter match made memorable by Dennis Lillee claiming the then world record for most Test wickets in a narrow Australian win.
Baird and Hockley have been attempting to create competitive tension among state governments as CA seeks to sign long-term deals for Test matches over the next seven years.
With the Boxing Day and New Year’s Tests all but assured for Melbourne and Sydney, it is left to Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane to jostle for the other pre-Christmas slots.
Test cricket’s commercial value in Australia, a driving force behind the addition of a fourth Test against New Zealand after the Border-Gavaskar series was also upsized to five Tests, is in contrast to the situation in New Zealand.
Australia will play just two Tests there on their tour in February and March next year, even though the two competing teams are the current and former World Test Championship winners.
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