Cricket Australia boss floats an England-Australia Test in India, then says it isn't being planned
Todd Greenberg told a BBC podcast the idea was 'open for consideration' — which is a long way from a fixture, and neither of the two boards who would have to agree has said a word.
Open for consideration. Not planned. No venue, no date.
Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg has said he would be open to staging an England-Australia Test in India, in an interview on BBC Sport's Stumped podcast written up on 23 July 2026.
"It's not something that we are planning, but it's open for consideration," Greenberg said. "We'd have to be open to considering all options." He added that Cricket Australia's relationship with the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Board of Control for Cricket in India was "very strong" and that "clearly there are opportunities in India to put more content in certain areas."
So: not planned, but open for consideration. That is the whole of it.
Greenberg said there was "no doubt" a Test between the two sides played on Indian soil would capture the imagination. "I think Test cricket between us, India and England is very strong and probably bucking the trend in some other parts of the world. We want to make sure we grow and strengthen it," he said.
England and Australia traditionally meet in Test cricket only through the Ashes, played home-and-away, with each country hosting roughly every four years. A Test on a third country's ground would need the agreement of both the ECB and the BCCI. Greenberg speaks for neither. As of publication the BCCI, whose buy-in the idea would require, has not publicly responded, and nor has the ECB. This platform has not contacted either board.
The remark comes as Cricket Australia expands its own presence in India: the Big Bash League is going overseas for the first time, with Melbourne Renegades due to face Perth Scorchers in Chennai in December, a move CA frames as tapping cricket's biggest market.
The same interview covered a separate, already-scheduled fixture: a one-off Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 2027 marking 150 years since the first meeting between the sides. It will be the first men's Test at the venue played with a pink ball, under lights. Greenberg defended the decision. "It's not my job to be popular," he said, citing "a commercial imperative with broadcast rights back in the UK and the time zone." He concluded: "It will anger some of the traditionalists but we're in the business of getting more eyeballs on our game."
What does not exist yet: a venue, a date, a format, or any indication of whether such a Test would count toward the World Test Championship or be a standalone exhibition — or, given that the Ashes is by definition contested in England and Australia, whether it would be an Ashes Test at all.