New Delhi: India will get to fine-tune their World Cup preparations with a three-match ODI series against Australia besides playing eight T20 Internationals and five Tests against England during the 2023-2024 home season.
The first ODI against Australia will be in Mohali September 22 with Indore and Rajkot hosting the remaining two September 24 and 27 respectively. The BCCI announced the home season schedule Tuesday.
As BCCI secretary Jay Shah had indicated, venues like Mohali, Nagpur, Rajkot, Indore, Thiruvananthapuram, all of which have missed out on hosting World Cup games, have been compensated during the home season with minimum two games each.
With the BCCI set to announce the media rights tender during the course of this week, it was necessary to announce the calendar and one of the striking feature is absence of any ODI game after the World Cup at home in October-November.
With India playing the T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies next year, the Hardik Pandya led team will get eight T20 games at home including five against Australian a week after the ODI showpiece and three more against Afghanistan in January 2024.
Afghanistan had played a Test match in India in 2018 but the white ball team will play its maiden series in India.
Visakhapatnam (November 23), Thiruvananthapuram (November 26), Guwahati (November 28), Nagpur (December 1) and Hyderabad (December 3) will host the T20s against Australia while Mohali (January 11), Indore (January 14) and Bengaluru (January 17) will stage matches against Afghanistan.
The big-ticket event during the home series is the Anthony De Mello Trophy between India and England. Hyderabad (January 25-29), Visakhapatnam (February 2-6), Rajkot (February 15-19), Ranchi (February 23-27) and Dharamsala (March 7-11) will get to host the games in the five-Test series.
Dharamsala got the game because it missed out during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy earlier this year as the ground couldn’t be prepared on time.
After England series, there will be a three-week gap before the start of the Indian Premier League.
Fixtures:
Australia series
1st ODI: Sep 22 (Mohali)
2nd ODI: Sep 24 (Indore)
3rd ODI: Sep 27 (Rajkot)
1st T20I: Nov 23 (Visakhapatnam)
2nd T20I: Nov 26 (Thiruvananthapuram)
3rd T20I: Nov 28 (Guwahati)
4th T20I: Dec 1 (Nagpur)
5th T20I: Dec 3 (Hyderabad)
Afghanistan series
1st T20I: Jan 11 (Mohali)
2nd T20I: Jan 14 (Indore)
3rd T20I: Jan 17 (Bengaluru)
England Series
1st Test: Jan 25-29 (Hyderabad)
2nd Test: Feb 2-6 (Visakhapatnam)
3rd Test: Feb 15-19 (Rajkot)
4th Test: Feb 23-27 (Ranchi)
5th Test: Mar 3-7 (Dharamsala).
PTI
