The Australian cricket team this morning knows
who it will be playing right through to 2012 after the ICC released its Future
Tours Program,
and it seems fans and players aren’t the only ones who have noticed the growing
popularity of series between Australia
and India.

The two nations will play each other every
year from 2007 to 2011, with an AAP report suggesting that administrators from both nations are looking to cash in on the
popularity of clashes between the two nations. Given the passion with which cricket is
followed by supporters in both countries, it’s a move designed to bolster the
growing rivalry between Australia and India; the ICC knows that can only be
good for cricket, and its own coffers.

While England
also finds itself with a busy schedule, there is a punishment of sorts in this
schedule for Bangladesh.

As Cricinfo reports,
over the next 12 months Bangladesh will not play a single Test and only
12 one day internationals. It
gets worse. Ten of those matches are against Zimbabwe,
and the other two are against Bermuda and Canada. Quite how Bangladesh
will continue improving by playing teams like Bermuda has not been made
clear.

The Bangladeshi players know it. “It is
really a frustrating situation for us because we have just gone around
to
showing our gradual improvement in this level,” said Habibul Bashar,
Bangladesh’s captain. “We were just grasping over the finer points of
Test
cricket which will definitely be hampered when we resume the campaign
after a
year.”

They’re not the only unhappy campers. Paul
Marsh, chief executive of the Australian Cricketers Association, has been swift
in his judgement, claiming the new schedule puts revenue raising ahead of
player welfare, and that it could lead to player burnout.

“There are
already some events programmed that aren’t on this program so there is
certainly going to be a whole lot more cricket,” Marsh told The Advertiser.
“We hope we don’t have to rest players from Tests because too much cricket is
played.”