Australia will be looking for redemption during the Ashes next year

Australia are set to play the fewest number of home ODIs during the 2013-2014 season due to the sky-rocketing popularity of Twenty20 cricket amongst the people in the country.

One extra Twenty20 International has been added on to Australia’s Ashes campaign against arch-rivals England in front of their home crowd, which in effect, makes this one of the largest Twenty20 series to be played in the country’s history.

Both nations will still play five Tests and ODIs during the series, despite ODIs being looked down upon as a dull and boring format with a relatively short future in store.

Since England will head to the land down in November, which is summer for that part of the world, Australia will only play 33 days of international cricket next year compared to the 43 days that have been siphoned off for this year.

The reduction in the number of days of international cricket could possibly leave room for next year’s edition of the Big Bash League to be the most successful yet since most of the players in the national team will be able to represent their respective franchises.

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland was unconcerned about the support for ODIs starting to free fall, even though the 2015 International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup is set to be held in Australia and New Zealand.

“Next summer’s going to be very much about the Ashes and the programme’s been designed about that,” Sutherland said. “We will play a bit more one-day cricket eh following season, we’ve got the World Cup at the end of that season, but before then we’ll have a couple of series of one-day cricket that are designed to prepare ours guys for the World Cup.

“I don’t have any concerns about maintaining the interest in the one-day format. That’s there. Would we like greater attendances? Absolutely, but we know that the television ratings and all of our research on the popularity of the one-day format is not a cause for concern.”

England’s tour of Australia is as follows:

October 31-November 2 Western Australia XI v England, WACA
November 6-9 Australia A v England, Bellerive Oval, Hobart
November 13-16 New South Wales XI v England, SCG

November 21-25 Australia v England, 1st Test, Gabba

November 29-30 CA Chairman’s XI v England, Manuka Oval, Canberra

December 5-9 Australia v England, 2nd Test, Adelaide Oval
December 13-17 Australia v England, 3rd Test, WACA
December 26-30 Australia v England, 4th Test, MCG
January 3-7 Australia v England, 5th Test, SCG