CA declined to comment.

The governments of Western Australia and Queensland have signed shorter-term deals, for three and two years each.

Perth Stadium will be home of the opening Test of the season until at least 2026 after forging ahead of Brisbane, which is only guaranteed a Test match for the next two summers and visits by India and England.

This is at least partly due to the outdated state of the Gabba, which faces an uncertain future after rebuild plans for the 2032 Olympics were shelved in favour of a more modest refurbishment that has no clear timeframe. In 2026-27, when four home Tests against New Zealand are scheduled before England’s one-off match, Brisbane may be missing from the roster for the first time in 50 summers.

The tender process for international cricket over a six-year period was devised by CA to build a more consistent level of government support for Test matches, increasing their visibility and public spending on services like security, catering and traffic management, while also allowing more interstate and overseas tourism around those games.

For so long the heartbeat of summer, they have not previously been inked into the sorts of major event contracts that enable the likes of the Australian Grand Prix, the Australian Open tennis or World Cups to take centre stage in each major city.

CA has found itself negotiating between states like SA and WA, which want better Test matches but would almost certainly never take the marquee slots owned by Melbourne and Sydney, and the bigger states wondering why there is any need for a taxpayer deal at all.

One of the requests put to the NSW government was for the lighting up of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge during men’s and women’s matches in the city “to increase the PR exposure of both NSW as a tourist destination and the events themselves”.

Hockley, a major events specialist who was part of the organisation of the 2012 London Olympics and the 2015 men’s ODI and 2020 women’s T20 World Cups in Australia, collaborated with CA chair and former NSW Premier Mike Baird to stitch together the deals. They have not been struck without rancour.

South Australia’s premier Peter Malinauskas termed the scheduling of Tests over the past couple of seasons a “disgrace”, as SA made a bold but unsuccessful bid to claim the New Year’s Test from Sydney.

More recently, a delay in Victoria’s decision to sign on, well after the other states had done so, caused one state government minister to privately accuse CA of using the hold-up as “leverage” during negotiations.

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CA has identified that the drop-off in crowds at the MCG on days two to four of the Boxing Day Test represent a major growth opportunity, alongside the prospect of filling Perth Stadium.

“What we’re working on with the MCG and all our partners is talking about the festivalisation of the Boxing Day Test,” Hockley said earlier this year. “That’s in large part why we’re looking to do longer-term arrangements where we have a longer time to plan.”

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