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Test specialists rest while others fly on

3 minute read

Australia's red-ball specialists won't play a Test for Australia again until June but their multi-format stars have 15 more matches before then.

TIM PAINE
TIM PAINE Picture: Lee Warren/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Tim Paine will return to Tasmanian grade cricket as Australia's red-ball specialists prepare for their quietest year of Test cricket in more than two decades.

Paine is set to turn out for the University of Tasmania in his next competitive cricket match, fresh from captaining Australia to a perfect 5-0 Test summer.

The Aussies have just one Test tour in 2020, featuring only two matches in Bangladesh in June and July.

It will mark their least away Tests in a year since way back in 1996, when only they played a one-off Test in India.

But while Paine will also throw himself into the Big Bash commentary scene in the coming month, the Aussies' multi-format stars have a far busier period.

Five members of the team that beat New Zealand at the SCG on Monday will board a plane for India on Thursday, for next week's three-match one-day series.

Steve Smith, David Warner, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Marnus Labuschagne will all feature, under short-form captain Aaron Finch.

They then head to South Africa for three Twenty20s and three ODIs, before hosting New Zealand in three more ODIs in March.

A return tour of New Zealand for three T20s follow, while there is also a white-ball tour of England later in preparation for a home T20 World Cup in October.

For the Test team they will reconvene in Bangladesh in June, desperate to win a series on the sub-continent for the first time since against Sri Lanka in 2011.

"For the main playing group, your goal as a group is Bangladesh and you certainly can't take it lightly," Paine said.

We went there before (in 2017) and won a Test and lost a Test.

"And all the reports from the guys who went there is that it's a really, really challenging place to play particularly the time of the year we're going to be there.

"We've got a good break when guys can freshen up, then IPL and county cricket to get ready for that series and some of us I suggest will be staying home and having a long while off."

Further ahead, a one-off Test against Afghanistan looms as the first red-ball international of next summer, before a massive four-Test series against India at home.

"We've obviously got our eye on next summer as well," Paine said.

"If we go to Bangladesh and play well and get some wins over there, then you come back to Australia to play India, which is quite a mouth-watering series for players and the fans."

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