Cricket Australia's desire to bed down pink ball cricket is behind the scheduling of the one-day series against New Zealand starting on Sunday that is jeopardising the Test side's preparation for the second time this summer.
A month after Australia's lack of match practice was identified as a key factor in their demise against South Africa, nearly half the likely XI for Brisbane will be in one-day mode the week before the day/night first Test against Pakistan starting on December 15.
The scheduling of the Chappell-Hadlee series will rob Steve Smith, David Warner, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Matthew Wade of an invaluable opportunity to get more time playing with a pink ball. Meanwhile, the touring Pakistanis will be in Cairns where they have a three-day tour game under lights before the series opener at the Gabba. A saving grace for CA is the fact the next round of the Shield will be played under lights.
The disjointed nature of the lead into the Pakistan series is similar to that before the South Africa series when the side had only one match in the Shield, a pink ball fixture no less, to prepare for a red ball Test.
While CA has said the public wants to see more cricket between the two nations, the less than ideal fixture is a byproduct of negotiations last year that led to New Zealand agreeing to play the historic day/night Test against Australia in Adelaide.
The Kiwis had initially been against the match but were convinced by a $1 million prize pool and a blockbuster touring program that guaranteed 10 Tests and eight Chappell-Hadlee series (28 ODIs) over a seven-year period. There will only be one summer between now and the end of the 2021/22 season that does not involve a Trans-Tasman battle.
The package proved hard to resist for New Zealand, which is desperate to become a bigger player in the world game and whose fans place more value on the Trans-Tasman rivalry in cricket than their Australian counterparts. Before last summer's Tests in Australia, the two nations had not played in a bilateral series since 2011.
The move to squeeze in the coming three games against the Black Caps has already had far reaching implications for the Test side, and more is to come. It meant CA was only able to fixture in one round of Shield, instead of two as recommended in the Argus review, before the South Africa series. The return series next year in February pushed back the Twenty20s against Sri Lanka, resulting in Australia fielding two teams in different formats and different countries 16 hours apart.
CA is determined to make day/night Tests a winner, believing it will make the five-day game more accessible for the public. They declared the Test in Adelaide last week a "resounding success".
This summer's schedule flies in the face of comments CA chief James Sutherland made last month in Melbourne when he discussed the need for world cricket to introduce leagues to add more meaning to international games.
"Bilateral cricket is in need of structure and context and we believe context is a driver to value with the fans, they will take a greater interest in it," Sutherland said. "It also allows some certainty as to how much cricket is being played, why matches are played."
Test batsman Usman Khawaja was critical last month of Australia's ODI tour of South Africa before the Test series.
"I'm not convinced about the timing ... it was a random time," Khawaja said. "I found it really bizarre that we played that one-day series before a big Test series.
"That's how international cricket is going these days. There is no break."
While cricket authorities are expecting a reasonable crowd in Sydney for game one against the Black Caps, the two teams should have much more drawing power, given they played off in the World Cup final last year and sit first (Australia) and third in 50-over rankings.