Finch’s dangerously familiar Australia host an England T20 side in transition

Australia captain Aaron Finch will rely on many of the players who won the last T20 World Cup in 2021. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

There’s a pleasant sense of relief this week, as we head into an Australia-England cricket contest without an accompanying circus of hype.

Nobody is crowing about a limited-overs series constituting the Twenty20 Ashes, as the marketing departments might once have attempted. Instead the three matches between Sunday and Friday will be rightly seen as warm-ups for the T20 World Cup, even if they’re not part of the official warm-up program that will see Australia play once against India, and England once against Pakistan, before the tournament proper.