{"id":559592,"date":"2025-11-09T15:22:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T15:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/559592\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T15:22:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T15:22:40","slug":"majority-of-australias-first-ashes-test-squad-to-feature-in-sheffield-shield-round-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/559592\/","title":{"rendered":"Majority of Australia’s first Ashes Test squad to feature in Sheffield Shield round four"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the next five days, Australia’s players will enjoy the first huge luxury of hosting a home Ashes series.<\/p>\n

Not because of the conditions or the fact record-breaking crowds are expected, but in terms of what the last full week of warm-ups looks like.<\/p>\n

Every member of Australia’s squad, with the exception of Usman Khawaja, will play in Sheffield Shield games at the SCG, WACA and Bellerive Oval this week.<\/p>\n

At the same time, England will be playing a three-day intra-squad game at Perth’s Lilac Hill, a venue that has never hosted a men’s international.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/p>\n

Steve Smith will captain New South Wales against Victoria at the SCG. (Getty Images: Bradley Kanaris)<\/p>\n

The tourists’ preparations were questioned by former England captain Michael Vaughan last week, pointing to the vast difference in conditions to Perth Stadium.<\/p>\n

Keen not to light an early fuse, Australia’s players have stayed away from questioning England’s tactics.<\/p>\n

“England can prepare however they want to prepare,” Nathan Lyon said this week.<\/p>\n

“I am not worried about how they’re preparing or anything to do with them until the morning of November 21.”<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

England’s preparations are nothing new, with a cluttered calendar making meaningful tour games a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

When Australia went to England in 2023, they played no warm-up games before the Test Championship final but won that as well as the first two Ashes battles with England.<\/p>\n

But there are very obvious advantages to having a longer lead-in for Australia’s players, given the timing of the series.<\/p>\n

England is coming off a white-ball series against New Zealand and its players have not featured in a red-ball match since early August.<\/p>\n

In comparison, Steve Smith has already hit one red-ball century this summer and Marnus Labuschagne two.<\/p>\n

Lyon will play his fourth Sheffield Shield game of the season and Scott Boland his third, while Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and back-up quick Sean Abbott join them at the SCG this week when NSW hosts Victoria.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the next five days, Australia’s players will enjoy the first huge luxury of hosting a home Ashes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8817],"tags":[23382,186,748,1406,393,4884,178548,47005,568,178549,1620,159506,70102,1862,31647,16,15],"class_list":["post-559592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sheffield","tag-ashes","tag-australia","tag-britain","tag-cricket","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-mcg","tag-mitchell-starc","tag-perth","tag-scg","tag-sheffield","tag-sheffield-shield","tag-steve-smith","tag-sydney","tag-test-cricket","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115520429483902394","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}