Cricket Australia boss Todd Greenberg has moved quickly to calm nerves around the tournament, confirming that the six Pakistan imports signed for this season’s Big Bash League will not be pulled out halfway to play a short T20I series in Sri Lanka.
Key points first
• Babar Azam, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Rizwan, Shadab Khan, Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali will stay with their BBL clubs through to the final.
• Pakistan’s three-match T20I tour of Sri Lanka, pencilled in for early January, will go ahead without them.
• Australia’s own T20I trip to Pakistan, a warm-up for the 2026 T20 World Cup, is still on the cards; CA and the players’ union have already completed an initial security visit.
• Mackay and Darwin have been earmarked to host men’s Tests against Bangladesh next winter.
• One pink-ball Test per Australian summer remains locked in until 2031.
Greenberg, speaking to reporters at Adelaide Oval before the third Ashes Test, was straightforward. “We’ve been told that if they’ve been signed by the BBL, they’ll play [the whole BBL],” he said. That line, delivered with minimal fuss, should settle any BBL club nerves around mid-season departures.
Why the concern?
The PCB only announced the Sri Lanka series a fortnight ago. With Pakistan’s calendar already tight, franchises feared a repeat of past seasons when overseas players vanished just as the knockout stages loomed. This time, the message from Lahore is clear: county-style availability clauses have been honoured, and the players stay put.
Security recce in Pakistan
Attention quickly turned to Australia’s own visit to Pakistan, scheduled for February. “We’ve just sent a couple of people to Pakistan to do a pre-tour for the T20I games in February,” Greenberg confirmed. “We’re going to have some conversations with the players after the [Ashes] series and explain to them how that will work with security. But I went there with them in 2022 and it was an amazing experience.”
CA and the Australian Cricketers’ Association typically undertake these checks four to six months out; the early trip suggests confidence that the postponed white-ball leg from 2022 can finally be ticked off. The ODI portion, part of the Future Tours Programme, is now pencilled for June, straight after the PSL and IPL windows, dovetailing with six limited-overs fixtures in Bangladesh later that month.
Northern-Australia Tests
For home fans, the headline is fresh northern venues. Mackay’s Harrup Park and Darwin’s Marrara Oval are set to stage Tests against Bangladesh in August-September. Final dates arrive in January, but the push northwards fits CA’s stated aim of spreading the longest format beyond traditional city bases.
The pink-ball question
Day-night Tests continue to divide opinion, yet the numbers appear decisive. “I’ve just reviewed the numbers from the Gabba, the pink-ball Test was unbelievable,” Greenberg said. “The night session, particularly, has double the number of viewers that we would get from the last session here today. There’s no doubt that it’s a successful opportunity for cricket. It gets more people watching and more people engaged in it.”
On longevity, he was just as blunt. “It’s in our broadcast contracts until 2031 that we will play a pink-ball Test. So it’s not going anywhere. There’s not going to be more of it, I’m not going to be playing five of them over summer. But it has real benefits. I understand that there’ll be people who’ll be critical of it, and I’m not asking for everyone to love it. But this is the evolution of Test cricket.”
Player workload, franchise pull
Balancing domestic leagues and international duty remains tricky. The BBL’s mid-season overlap with Pakistan’s commitments is an example: a 10-year FTP drawn up in 2023 never fully anticipated the explosion of bilateral T20Is squeezed into short gaps. An agent familiar with the negotiations, who asked not to be quoted by name, said Pakistan’s management wanted “clarity rather than conflict” and opted to protect the BBL contracts. That stance, if it holds, could strengthen future ties between the BBL and PCB, two boards that rarely had aligned calendars in the past.
What next?
• Confirmation of exact dates for the Australia–Pakistan February T20Is, likely before the end of the year.
• Ticket details for Mackay and Darwin Tests once playing conditions are signed off.
• Final squad announcements from BBL clubs, all now confident their Pakistani stars can be selected right through to the final week of the season.
For now, Big Bash coaches can sleep a little easier, knowing their overseas match-winners will be available when it matters most.
