Football season is over and Australia’s men kick off the springtime of cricket by heading across the ditch for surely one of their fastest cricket series.
No more than 75 hours will have elapsed between the first and last balls of the three-match T20 international series being played entirely at Tauranga’s Bay Oval on New Zealand’s north island.
The Chappell-Hadlee Trophy, which the Kiwis have not won since 2016, is being contested for the second time in as many years, again in the shorter white-ball format rather the ODI arena for which the silverware was originally created for.
These trans-Tasman rivals famously contested the first international T20 match back in 2005 at Auckland’s Eden Park.
That game was “mainly about the fashion”, according to former Kiwi spinner (now Australia assistant coach) Dan Vettori. It featured silly facial hair and nicknames on shirt-backs. It was nothing more than a “piss-take”, as Adam Zampa succinctly put it this week.
Two decades on and this format is anything but, despite New Zealand Cricket marking the series as a nod to the past by rebranding the Bay Oval as ‘Beige Oval’.
February’s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka looms large and there’s every reason to expect these two sides to be there at its business end; the last time that tournament was held in Asia, in 2021, Australia and NZ were the finalists.
Series schedule
First T20: October 1, Bay Opa, Mount Mountain, 4.15pm Aest
Second T20: October 3, Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui, 4.15PM
Third T20: October 4, Bay Opa, Mount Maunganui, 4.15PM
How to watch?
Australian fans will need a You sports or Foxtel subscription to tune into the matches. You can sign up for Kayo here.
How else can I follow?
Cricket.com.au and the CA Live app is the place to go for all the news, highlights and reactions following each of the T20 matches.
The squads
New Zealand: Michael Bracewell (c), Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy, Zak Foulkes, Matt Henry, Bevon Jacobs, Kyle Jamieson, Daryl Mitchell, Rachin Ravindra, Tim Robinson, Ben Sears, Tim Seifert, Ish Sodhi
The home side are severely depleted for their first series of the home season, which will also feature a pre-Ashes visit from England, an all-format West Indies tour and five more T20Is against South Africa.
Regular T20 Captain Mitchell Santner headlines the Black Caps’ significant injury list, leaving Michael Bracewell to take over the leadership.
Will O’Rourke (back), Glenn Phillips (groin), Finn Allen (foot) and Adam Milne (also foot) are all missing due to injury as well, while former skipper Kane Williamson, who these days holds a ‘casual’ playing contract with his home board, will not feature either.
Devon Conway, Tim Seifert and Lockie Ferguson also hold casual deals but are playing in the series, as are quicks Kyle Jamieson and Ben Sears after recovering from recent injuries.
This series will be coach Rob Walter’s first at home since taking over from Gary Stead in June.
Australia: Mitchell Marsh (c), Sean Abbott, Xavier Bartlett, Tim David, Ben Dwarshuis, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matt Kuhnemann, Mitchell Owen, Josh Philippe, Matthew Short, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa
Australia also suffered a huge injury blow on the eve of the series with allrounder Glenn Maxwell ruled out after fracturing his forearm at training in New Zealand. He has been sent home to undergo a specialist review after being struck on the wrist by a ball while bowling in the nets. Josh Philippe comes into the squad as his replacement after scoring a century for Australia A in India this month.
But perhaps surprisingly for an away T20 series so close to a major Test campaign, Australia have otherwise named a squad that is at close to full-strength.
Along with Maxwell, Pat Cummins (back stress) and Josh Inglis (calf injury) are the only definite first-picked players missing, though fellow absentees Nathan Ellis (birth of first child) and Cameron Green (red-ball priority ahead of Ashes) have mounted a case to be in a strongest XI.
Matt Short will play his first T20Is in close to a year having endured quad and side injuries this year. After last year’s World Cup, he also made a solid case to replace David Warner as Travis Head’s opening partner but now has to re-prove himself somewhat with Mitch Marsh now locked in to open with Head.
Marcus Stoinis is back after missing series in northern Australia and the Caribbean, playing in overseas franchise leagues instead.
Sean Abbott, Ben Dwarshuis and Xavier Bartlett will be jostling to be at the front of the fast-bowling queue for a T20I side that has seen Mitchell Starc retire recently.
A further point of interest will be Alex Carey, the incumbent Test keeper who was a late call-up for this tour following Inglis’ injury.
Carey’s T20I record is not stellar and selectors have previously learnt towards Jake Fraser-McGurk, who has been working on the wicketkeeping role he performed as a junior as a back-up option to Inglis.
But Carey might be seen as more suited than Fraser-McGurk, and another keeping candidate in Philippe, to play in the middle-order. He has the chance to prove them right here.
Local knowledge
Mitch Marsh has made a reputation as a bowl-first skipper. In fact, he inserted his opponents on the first 21 occasions he won the toss as captain of Australia, only deviating for the first time last month in an ODI against South Africa.
Marsh may need to re-think his approach at Mount Maunganui, a venue Australia’s men have never played at. Out of the 14 men’s T20Is at the venue not decided by the DLS system, none have been won by the team batting second.
It’s not for a lack of trying either. In eight of those matches, the toss-winning captain chose to bat.
This venue should suit Australia’s big hitters however given the average winning score batting first is not far off 200. The visitors have noted strong winds at the oval located on a peninsula and which has no sizeable grandstands to break the gusts whipping in off the Bay of Plenty.
Cold weather might also be a consideration for the Aussies, with Marsh admitting they will need hand-warmers at night when temperatures are expected to get down to 12 degrees.
Players to watch
Marcus Stoinis
Does World Cup-winner Marcus Stoinis have anything to prove?
This is an interesting sub-plot ahead of the T20 World Cup, a tournament that Stoinis was integral in helping Australia’s men lift for the first time back in 2021 with a match-winning hand in the semi-final.
Equally important at that UAE event was his bowling, with his seamers and Glenn Maxwell’s off-spin allowing Aaron Finch’s side to make the major strategic shift of picking four specialist bowlers instead of five.
Four years on, that remains their preferred approach.
Stoinis is retired from ODIs and, at age 36, it is reasonable to expect February’s World Cup to be his international swansong. And maybe for the first time since his successful transition from T20 opener to late-innings finisher, there is genuine competition for middle-order spots in Australia’s team.
Tim David has gone to another level during recent series against West Indies and South Africa; Mitchell Owen has emerged as a genuine option; Cameron Green is always improving as a white-ball cricketer; Maxwell meanwhile keeps pulling off stunning match-winning performances.
Matt Short is also back for this tour and could be tried through the middle.
Stoinis of course remains a top-shelf prospect on the T20 franchise circuit and has turned in strong performances with bat and ball in the SA20, IPL, MLC and Hundred competitions he has played in since his last outing for Australia in November last year.
With a run of T20Is over the coming weeks first in NZ and then five more against India at home, the Western Australian has the chance to remind selectors of what he can do in international cricket.
“I’m sure there’s a picture in the head of the selectors about what they want to do and how they want the team lining up come that World Cup, so it’s a nice build-in for everyone,” Stoinis said this week.
Ben Sears
Australia know well the kind of ability possessed by Sears, one of a growing stable of Kiwi quicks capable of sending them down above 140kph.
In March last year, the Test debutant claimed Steve Smith (in his short-lived stint opening the batting) as his maiden wicket in Christchurch.
The tall right-armer then ran through the Aussies in their fourth-innings run chase, removing Marnus Labuschagne, Cameron Green, Mitch Marsh and Mitchell Starc to leave the Kiwis on the verge of victory.
Only an Alex Carey and Pat Cummins rearguard saved the visitors.
That remains Sears’ sole Test to date, with the now 27-year-old battling hamstring and side issues this year either side of stints with Yorkshire in county cricket and San Francisco Unicorns in the USA’s MLC.
In his first international series back from injury, Sears’ pace could cause Australia’s powerful batters some headaches.
Form guide
*Past 10 matches, most recent first. W: win, L: loss.
New Zealand: Wwwwwwlwwww
Australia: WLWWWWWWWW
There’s been strong results for both teams leading into this series; NZ have lost just once in their last 10 T20Is, Australia only once in 11 games.
For NZ, that stretches across a tri-series against South Africa and Zimbabwe in the latter country as well as a home series against Pakistan, while Australia have faced the Proteas (at home), West Indies (away) and Pakistan (home) over those 10 games.
Rapid stats
- This is set to be the fourth multi-game bilateral men’s T20I series between New Zealand and Australia. Each of the previous three iterations has seen a different result (February 2010 was a 1-1 draw, March 2021 3-2 New Zealand, February 2024 3-0 Australia).
- New Zealand have won their last four men’s T20Is at Bay Oval. A fifth consecutive win in this match would be their outright longest winning run at the venue.
- Australia’s collective batting strike rate (158.4) is the best of any team this year.
- New Zealand have a batting dot ball rate of 32 per cent in men’s T20Is in 2025, the lowest of any Test-playing country this year. In addition, the Black Caps’ collective batting average (32.3) is the best of any full-member team.
- Tim David has scored 289 runs at an average of 72.3 across his last six T20I innings. He is 75 runs away (925) from becoming the 10th player to score 1,000 runs for Australia in the history of the men’s format.
- Mitchell Marsh (27) is one away from equalling George Bailey (28) for the second most appearances as captain of Australia in men’s T20Is. Aaron Finch has the most with 76. With 23 wins, Marsh has already recorded the second most wins as captain of Australia in the history of the format behind Finch’s 40.
- Tim Seifert has scored 27 per cent of New Zealand’s runs when he’s played in men’s T20Is in 2025, the second-best rate of any player (min. 2 innings) for a Test playing country this year (Abhishek Sharma – 32.6 per cent for India).