Cricket Australia has stripped Adelaide of its traditional Australia Day cricket match.
The one-day match between Australia and India will instead be played at the SCG – one of the few times in recent cricket history when cricket hasn’t been played at Adelaide Oval on the national day.
According to a report on the Cricket Australia website, the 2014-15 schedule to be released on Monday will reveal the slap in the face to South Australian cricket lovers.
“It is understood that the January 26 fixture – between Australia and India on what is a day of national celebration for both countries – will be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground as part of a triangular ODI series that also includes England,” the report says.
“While Sydney has hosted the highly-prized Australia Day match on previous occasions, more recently the national day has traditionally been celebrated with cricket at Adelaide Oval where the much-lauded $535 million redevelopment was completed earlier this year.
“There has been only two occasions this century when an Australia Day match was not staged in Adelaide – in 2013 when the ongoing redevelopment meant it offered reduced crowd capacity, and in 2003.
“On the latter occasion, Adelaide was in line to host the third of the best-of-three one-day finals between Australia and England on January 27 if it was needed, but the home team wrapped up the series in straight sets.”
Adelaide Oval will host plenty of one-day cricket next year, with four ICC World Cup games scheduled for the Oval in late February and March, including a quarter final, plus a warm up game between Australia and India on 8 February.
South Australian Tourism Minister Leon Bignell said he understood why the scheduling had to change next season, with the World Cup causing a truncated regular season.
However, he said he’d had “full and frank words” with Cricket Australia today over the decision.
He also lashed out at Cricket Australia for its “inept” approach to the coming international season, in particular its failure to release the international schedule before now.
“If they’re a professional, modern sporting organisation, surely they should have the dates out by now,” he said.
Bignell said he was happy overall with Adelaide Oval’s share of cricket in the coming season, including a Test against India and the World Cup matches.
He said the India versus Pakistan match scheduled for 15 March would likely attract the biggest television audience in cricket history.
Australia and India will play a Test at Adelaide Oval this summer, at a date yet to be announced.
“If I had to miss out on something, I would prefer to miss the one-dayer rather than the five-dayer,” Bignell told InDaily.
“But it’s not a good process that Cricket Australia have gone through. Why haven’t they released the schedule? We’ve invested half a billion dollars on this stadium and we want to get a tourism dividend out of this investment.”
The Opposition blamed Bignell for the match’s loss.
“South Australian cricket fans will be bitterly disappointed that the much loved tradition of Adelaide hosting international cricket on the Australia Day weekend has been broken this year,” said Shadow Minister for Recreation and Sport Tim Whetstone.
“South Australian cricket lovers will also have some pointed questions for Sports Minister Leon Bignell.”
He said that “had Minister Bignell spent less time complaining about Leigh Street traders not opening up on AFL game days he may have prevented the loss of this important fixture in South Australia’s sporting calendar”.
“South Australian taxpayers invested heavily in the redevelopment of Adelaide Oval precisely to ensure we can attract major sporting fixtures here.”
Bignell denied he’d taken his eye off the ball.
