Two-week window for Aussie test players to play the BBL with the season to run from December 14 to January 25.
Australia’s Test players to have a two-week window to play in the BBL.
With the fixture announcement on Thursday, Cricket Australia (CA) is hopeful that the forthcoming season could be among the best ever because Australia’s Test players will have a rare, uninterrupted two-week window to participate in the BBL 2025-26 season after the home Ashes series.
Three days before the third Ashes Test between Australia and England begins in Adelaide, the Perth Scorchers will host the Sydney Sixers on December 14 to kick off the BBL season. The tournament will conclude on the Sunday night before the Australia Day public holiday on January 26. The 40-game regular season will conclude on January 18 and the finals will take place on January 20–25.
Australia’s Test players should be available for the final 10 days of the regular season as the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney takes place from January 4 to January 8. After a taxing five-Test series, it is more likely that only a few batters will be available. However, the BBL is still hopeful that some of the bowlers and all-rounders would participate in order to get ready for the T20 World Cup in February. The players themselves and CA’s top-performing squad will ultimately decide when they are available, though.
“We earmarked this season from a while back,” Dobson said. “Anything we do around international summer is huge. But then to have a good, clear run of nights available from mid-December through to the end of January, where we can play the BBL every night, is one that adds up to a pretty strong season for us.
“Inevitably, at other times, there are things that don’t allow that, whether it’s different scheduling of Test matches, whether it’s the Australian team having content at the end of the summer, which might restrict potentially availability of some of our Test players and Australian players. So all those things in the mix this year give us confidence this is as good a year as we’ve had almost ever.”